The Hearts of Many
by DarkBlueChild
Summary: When Malfoy was pointing his wand at the headmaster and Harry was immobile under the Invisibility cloak, Hermione, under a Disillusionment Charm, entered the Astronomy Tower. The events are now drastically changed, Dumbledore survives and Snape owes Hermione a life debt. Rated M for sexual content, language and some violence.
1. Chapter 1

Hermione was certain of two things only. The first was that the two figures in the distance, flying toward Hogwarts, were Harry and professor Dumbledore. The second was that she had to get herself unnoticed to the Astronomy Tower because, with how high they were flying, that was the most likely place they would land. It was a logical assumption, backed up by the fact that it was from above the Astronomy Tower that the green light of the Dark Mark pulsed.

Malfoy's plan, whatever it was, succeeded.

Death Eaters were in the castle.

* * *

It was half past nine when Harry ran out of the Fat lady's portrait and barged into the Gryffindor common room, ignoring Ron and Hermione who were doing their homework on the couch in front of the fireplace. Breathless, he ran past them and up the stairs into his dormitory, ignoring Ron's inelegant 'Oi!' and Hermione's voice calling out his name. He ran out back to them less than a minute after, having retrieved from his suitcase everything he needed.

"No way, mate," Ron started in an exasperated voice after Harry chucked the Marauder's map into his lap.

"I've got homework to copy," he whined, chucking the map right back at Harry as he reached for the mug of cocoa on the coffee table in front of him. He was hoping that Harry would take the lengthy Transfiguration assignment that was due tomorrow as a good enough excuse not to stick him with the job of babysitting Draco Malfoy's name on a piece of old parchment, at least for tonight.

The candle lit room was warm and the air smelled faintly of cinnamon from the apple pies Dobby brought them earlier, but the peaceful comfort Ron and Hermione were feeling was gone when they noticed that Harry's mood was positively electric. Breathless as Harry was from running all the way from the headmaster's office, he seemed in such a mood that he might start jumping, shouting and dancing, all the same time, if only he wasn't too preoccupied with trying to catch his breath.

"Where are you going?" asked Hermione, who was comfortably reading a book on advanced Arithmancy, up until Harry barged in. A hint of alarm was in her voice since she noticed the folded Invisibility cloak under Harry's arm, knowing full well it could only mean trouble.

"It's after curfew," she said as she reached up and tugged on Harry's sleeve gently. She could feel Harry's silent excitement radiate in waves and she felt certain that she wasn't going to like whatever he was up to. _Here we go again,_ she thought as he leaned his head closer to them so that they could hear his silent whispers.

"It's happening. Dumbledore's found a Horcrux and he's taking me with him."

Upon hearing those words, Ron immediately spat out a bit of cocoa that he was sipping onto his lap, the droplets luckily missing the Map, and Hermione gasped in horror rather loudly, covering her mouth with her hands in her usual manner.

"We would have left already, but I had to come here and fetch the Invisibility cloak," Harry said with a determined smile, ignoring their reactions as he reached into his pocket.

"Feels like a good time to drink this," Harry said before they could recover from the shock of his declaration and attack him with questions. He was grinning as he took the vial of the remaining Felix Felicis out of his pocket, uncorked it and drank its contents in a big gulp.

He savoured the sweet taste of the amber liquid, thinking that that was the last time in his life he would pour Luck down his throat, and closed his eyes in order to completely savour the moment.

"Harry, but where are you going?" Hermione repeated her question, this time in a shrill voice, her fear rising after she witnessed Harry drink the last of the precious potion. Harry was certainly acting nonchalant, as if he might have just drunk pumpkin juice, but she knew inside herself that wherever they were going must be very dangerous if there was need for _that._

"Did professor Dumbledore ask you to drink the Felix or was it your own idea?", she added to her question.

"I don't have time to explain," Harry said in reply, and immediately the effects of the potion were visible. He seemed like he might have taken a calming drought instead of the Liquid luck as all his excitement was suddenly gone, replaced by poise and a sense of purpose.

"That is, other than it's in a cave that's in the middle of nowhere," he continued, "and no, he didn't tell me to drink it, I just felt like I'll _really_ need it. Ron, watch over Malfoy for me," Harry repeated his request as he turned his attention to his friend in a pleading voice.

"But I've got..." Ron started but didn't finish; instead he made an exasperated expression as he pointed at the Transfiguration papers that covered almost the entire table in front of them.

"With Dumbledore away, it will be a perfect chance for him to do something stupid. _Again,_ " Harry emphasised, and they both knew he had a point there.

Ron sighed and nodded, knowing there was no point in arguing with Harry about something as silly as Malfoy right before his mission with Dumbledore. McGonagall probably won't give him too harsh a punishment for not completing the assignment anyway, he consoled himself, and he knew that Harry hasn't even started on his.

"Thanks, mate," Harry said, sounding very relieved and the gratitude in Harry's voice cheered Ron up, if only a bit.

"I've got to go now," he said, nodding to both of them, and started turning, but stopped when he felt Hermione grab his hand with her own.

"Promise me that _you_ won't do anything stupid," she asked as she tugged hard at his sleeve.

He looked into her pretty, chestnut coloured eyes and saw fear and pain in them, and he felt guilty for making her feel that way, but he knew that he couldn't refuse Dumbledore's request for help, even though he knew he would leave his favourite girl behind in emotional turmoil.

"I won't, don't worry," he said as he leaned down to embrace her and buried his face into the chaos that her hair was, inhaling deeply, thinking to himself that the scent of her shampoo will probably be the best thing to bring back to memory in case he was to die tonight.

"Dumbledore already made me promise to do everything he tells me. That should be more than good enough for you," he said with a smile as his lips were behind her ear, and he gave her a small kiss there, knowing that Ron wouldn't be able to see the excess of affection.

He felt her shiver slightly as he released her and both he and Ron heard her sniffle gently.

Hermione's reaction to a situation like this was fretting and general panic, but Ron's way was to mask fear with annoyance.

"Bloody hell, Mione, they are only going to fetch a Horcrux, not march into the Malfoy manor and have a grand battle with the ugly snake and his stupid army," Ron said as he pushed himself up in order to help Harry free himself from what seemed to be becoming a suffocating embrace.

"Please don't make too big of a deal out of this," Hermione heard Harry's gentle voice in her ear as he gave her another kiss, on her temple this time, and in the next moment he was already walking away from them while unfolding the cloak in order to disappear from sight.

Harry didn't stop to turn around. He wanted to, but he felt Felix starting to kick in at its full strength. It was telling him that they'll be alright.

As he was stepping out of the portrait again, he knew Ron already took over comforting Hermione. Felix was also telling him that Ron will do what he asked of him and somehow he knew that that was a _crucial_ part of the events tonight. All that he needed to do now was to be quick about getting to Dumbledore so that the whole business can be over as soon as possible.

* * *

Both Ron and Hermione were silent as they waited for Harry's return, but Hermione's silence was more of the brooding type as opposed to Ron's, who looked more resigned than anything else.

For the first time since the Golden trio was formed Harry Potter left both his friends behind and headed into danger by himself. There were times when one or both had to _stay_ behind, but this was the first time they were knowingly _left_ behind, sitting on a sofa in front of the fireplace in the Common room with mugs of cocoa and homework scattered around them.

With how unconcerned Harry seemed, it felt to them as if he was headed for detention with Snape instead of Voldemort-related business. They _knew_ they couldn't help him this time around, but simply being aware of it didn't make them feel any better. They wanted to be involved because that's how the Golden trio worked.

It's what they were used to after six long years of mischief and disobedience.

More than an hour passed since Harry left.

Some of the charmed candles have gone out (the castle's signal to the remaining students that it's bedtime) and the light in the room grew fainter, which added even more to the ominous atmosphere.

The grandfather clock behind them rang eleven times, its chimes leaving no echo in the room, but just hearing the sound break the eerie silence sent unwelcome shivers up their spines.

Ron had the Map in his lap and his eyes were glued on it, because even though he thought the information on Malfoy's whereabouts was useless without knowing what he was actually up to, he knew that Harry was counting on him. He turned the pages mechanically every few minutes to check Malfoys common routes. Upon finding him absent on every one of them, he went back to monitoring the empty hallway in front of the Room of Requirement.

Hermione, lying next to him, had a book in her lap but no patience to read it, and instead occupied herself by staring at Ron's profile as he studied the Map, her mind clouded with worry.

Even though she was wrapped all around in a thick golden blanket which made her look like an oversized dragon egg, she stuck her feet under the redhead's thigh in search for even more warmth. Feeling her discomfort, which he knew had nothing to do with her cold feet, Ron mechanically reached for her leg and started stroking it over the blanket.

"Mione," he started with a sigh without looking up from the Map, "he drank an entire bottle of Felix Felicis in front of our eyes. He'll be fine," he said, trying to comfort her.

"And he's with Dumbledore," he added.

For him this was argument enough, but he knew that she wouldn't be calm even if Harry was out there with the entire Order.

"They aren't going to a battle, they just need to collect Voldemort's cursed earrings or something like that," he said and sniggered as various imagined pieces of gaudy jewellery which the Dark Bastard might have used to make himself the world's biggest pain in the arse flashed through his mind.

What he said was silly enough to drag a small smile on Hermione's face.

"But you've seen Dumbledore's hand," she said with a sigh as she pushed her back off the sofa and leaned on her forearms.

"Even he can get careless. He's probably a lot weaker now due to that injury. And there is only so much luck one can have when fighting the _darkest_ magic in the world, even with the Felix Felicis."

She started pulling her feet from under Ron, but he grabbed them with both his hands when he felt her move, with the same speed as if suddenly he were on the Quidditch pitch and her feet were the Quaffle, letting the Map fall on the floor between his legs in the process.

Screw Malfoy for the moment, he thought. He felt that she needed him and that took precedence. Her feet now felt even warmer, trapped in the big hands of the handsome redhead who was almost her brother. He looked at her with his innocent and trusting blue eyes, and from his half-smile she knew that he was not even half as worried as she was.

She leaned into his body and put her head on his shoulder, feeling his strong arms pull her even closer to him.

After the Ministry battle they no longer felt any awkwardness from close physical contact in times of fright. They found that after being through so much blood and dirt together through the years, they lost almost all sense of propriety.

Last year in the Ministry of Magic he held her half naked body in his arms, having the blood flow from her bare chest all over him after Dolohov's curse tore her open. It was him that carried her all the way to the atrium of the Ministry and flooed her to St Mungo's. When they reached the healing wards, due to the shock he was in from his own injuries, he refused to let go of her body so that Lupin and Kingsley had to pry her from him in order to allow the Healers to get to her. Due to such events, a year later, it was only natural that their first instinct was to ignore any thought of embarrassment and huddle closer together when frightened as they were tonight.

Ron had Quidditch practice a few hours ago so he smelled like the Quidditch pitch, like grass and wood and leather, and she felt just a bit better when his masculine scent surrounded her. Knowing that Ron was there to hold her calmed her down if only a little bit while she was imagining the various terrors that might be out there, trying to kill Harry that very moment. She had no way of knowing that Harry was battling Inferi at the same time Ron was telling her that he was safe.

"But it's the _darkest_ magic, Ron," she whispered into his shoulder. "There is nothing more dangerous that those monstrosities of his. And there must be at least one Horcrux that he's kept safer than the others," she said, but Ron just closed his eyes, shaking his head.

"You're not the only one that's worried," he said quietly.

"I'm sorry," she said as she ended the hug and got up to her feet, since she knew she was beginning to feel too restless. All the anxiety she felt almost made her stomach turn and she was glad that she had a very light dinner.

She could still feel her skin tingle on the places where Harry kissed her. She turned to look at the clock and decided that too much time has passed. Harry didn't give them a specific time when he thought he might be back, but in her mind he was now officially late.

Ron, who was still on the couch, now that he no longer had her in his arms, wanted her back, belatedly realising that holding her also calmed _him_ down, and as he felt anxiety creep up his mind he lay himself down on his back on the warm spot where her body was moments ago.

"I'm going out for a walk," she declared as she stood with her hands on her hips, just as he was about to ask her to come back to him. She started hunting for her shoes.

He didn't reply. He didn't want her to leave. She disappeared from his sight for a moment as she got on all fours to look for the shoes under the sofa.

"You know, I love the times when you forget that you're a witch and go full Muggle on us," he said with a snort while staring at the cracked ceiling with half a mind to just grab her and forcefully pull her back onto the couch with him.

"And what do you mean by that?" came her muffled reply from the floor.

" _Accio_ shoes _!"_ he said, waving his wand half-heartedly, and he heard the shoes move and stop in front of Hermione's feet.

"That's what I mean," he said and felt quite smug for a moment.

Unlike Harry who, since he found out that magic exists, became entirely dependent on it whenever he was allowed to use it, Hermione's mind reverted back to that of a Muggle when under enough stress. More than once have Harry and Ron found her jumping up and down in the library, trying to grab a book that was out of her reach when exams were near, instead of just _Accioing_ it to herself.

"Thank you," she said gently and put on her shoes without looking at him.

"I don't mind you going, but what if someone sees you?" he asked.

"I'll tell Filch I'm on patrol if I see him. And if I come across some of the other Prefects I'll just say that I thought I was on duty. Something stupid like that." She finally turned to look at him and noticed that he looked like a kicked puppy. She half expected him to whine and beg for her to get back on the couch.

"I'll go mad if I don't walk around for a bit," she said, feeling a bit guilty as she knew she was leaving him all alone to just stare at the Map, but still she hoped he would understand her need for solitude in that moment.

"You've gone mad a long time ago, Mione," Ron said in a small voice as he looked at her, and she felt his blue eyes pierce her.

It was a new habit of his, to stare at her in a way that made her feel very naked.

She felt that the boy who she once knew to have the emotional range of a teaspoon was changing fast and in a way that unnerved her. He became way more observant lately than was to her liking, because it was _her_ that he was observing, more often than not. She noticed it all, even though she never said a word about it. She picked up the fallen Map and gave it back to him so that she wouldn't have to respond to his queer statement.

Ron went back to dutifully studying the Map as soon as she put it in his arms, holding it up like a newspaper.

"Where's Draco?" she asked timidly, saying the name very gently, hoping that the blond Slytherin was back in his room already so that there wouldn't be a chance of her running into him, no matter how much she wished to see whether his cheeks have sunken even more, or if the dark circles under his eyes turned a deeper shade of purple.

"Draco?" Ron spat out the name, breaking himself out of the semi-cheerful mood he was in and lifted himself on his elbows with his face twisted in an expression of disgust.

"Malfoy," she groaned impatiently, rolling her eyes.

"Calling him by his name now? Mione, for fuck's sake!" Ron shouted, anger boiling within him in a matter of seconds.

Naturally, he instantly regretted it, seeing as she closed her eyes and just stood there as she realised her mistake, preparing herself for an old fight but obviously feeling defeated already. He fought for calm and tried again, ignoring the wish to stand up, shout and wave his arms to emphasise a point.

"Mione, I understand that he's in a _very_ shitty position this year, but he is still the same bastard we've hated since first year and _not_ another of the house elves to be pitied!"

Hermione kept silent as she watched Ron work himself into a snit over the fact that she'd accidentally said Malfoy's first name out loud. _Great. All I needed tonight. The cherry on top._

Ron continued.

"Katie is alive only because she was lucky. _I_ am alive only because I was lucky," he said with his voice becoming louder as the memory of the night he almost died came back to him at full strength.

"I would be dead if Harry wasn't by my side when I drank the git's poison! Which he, let's not forget, intended for Dumbledore to drink! Did you forget that was _two_ months ago?" he asked as he looked at her with a bewildered expression. _How can she still be so stubborn?_ , he wondered, wishing that there was something he could say that would make her see reason.

He got up to his feet and stood in front of her, close enough that she could hear his breathing and feel as if he could hear the pounding of her heart.

"Look at me," he said in a gentle yet commanding voice. She complied and turned to him, looking at him with a slight frown on her face.

"He's not a house elf, Mione. Not another pet project of yours," he said more gently than before, reaching for her wrist with his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. She wanted to speak, but she knew that Ron had a good point. It's just that she didn't want to acknowledge it all, since she still hadn't given up hoping that something could be done to help Draco Malfoy, and by doing that – to help Harry.

"He would probably use Cruciatus on you if you tried to bully him into accepting help. Don't you think Dumbledore would have turned him into a spy or put him under his protection already if it was possible for him to have a change of heart?"

Hermione thought of trying to explain again that Malfoy's actions were an obvious cry for help, but she knew that it would all fall on deaf ears, so she started turning away from him in hope that he would let her stare at the fireplace instead of his angry face, but he grabbed her arm and dragged her down to sit onto the couch next to him in the same fashion she dragged Harry for an embrace over an hour ago.

The task of watching the name of one Draco Malfoy on the Marauder's Map was the hobby Harry forced down on Ron and Hermione from the beginning of the school year, but at one point, since Malfoy became such a frequent topic, both Ron and Harry noticed that the venom that was supposed to be in her voice when she said his name was gone and instead she switched to the same compassionate tone of voice she used for the house elves.

They knew she was a sucker for lost causes, but becoming understanding and compassionate towards _Malfoy_ was too much for them to handle, even though his circumstances were not hard to grasp. His father screwed up an important mission royally, so the world fell on the younger blond git's shoulders when Voldemort decided to punish Lucius by trying to break his son, and now he was miserable for it.

But Ron also never heard her call him Draco before. Which he found bloody alarming.

She felt that Ron said all he wanted to say and knew it was finally her turn to speak. She drew in a bit breath since she knew her words will escape her in a torrent. She knew before she started that she will sound like an unreasonable child to him, but that still didn't stop her from trying to explain how she felt.

"I know, but haven't you seen him lately?" she said pointedly, but Ron only gave her a look which said that seeing Malfoy for a minute was a minute too much for him.

"He looks desperate, and I can tell that he hasn't slept or eaten properly for _months_. Don't you think it would be better for us if we at least _tried_ to get him to open up and ask for help before it's too late? He is a bastard and a sleazy git, I know all that, but I also know that he's _not_ evil," she finished with a sharp intake of breath and saw Ron's frown deepen when he realised how convinced she sounded at her last statement.

"At least, that he's nothing like the rest of them," she added, hoping it was explanation enough.

"But how can you be so certain of it?" Ron asked her, now sounding more sad than exasperated, but there was also a hint of suspicion in his voice.

"That's what gets me every time. Lately you speak as if you've been his therapist. How do you know for sure that he wouldn't turn on us even if we did manage to break him in somehow?"

Hermione lowered her gaze, and somehow Ron felt a shift inside her and knew that she will not answer his question directly.

"I don't care about Malfoy at the moment, Ron. I care about Harry, who is still not back. I feel like jumping out of my own skin," she said while she wrapped her hands around her shoulders as if she was cold, hugging herself while trying to stay calm and prevent the tears from welling in her eyes.

"Hey, come here," said Ron, regretting that he's raised his voice when he saw her like that. With his hand extended he invited her for an embrace. "I'm sorry. It's an old fight already, I shouldn't have shouted like that."

"No," she said, waving his hand away with her own. She knew she might start crying if she accepted the embrace and she had no intention of Harry coming back and seeing her face red and puffy.

"No, you're right," she said with a forced smile, "I have been making too big of a victim out of him. I'm fine. Check where Malfoy is, please," she said in a gentle voice, hoping that he didn't think he had upset her too much. He too was worried about Harry, there's absolutely no need for him to be worried about her as well, she thought. Ron sighed and did what she asked of him.

"Be careful. He is still in the Room of Requirement. I mean, most likely, I don't see him anywhere else," he said, folding over the map in his lap.

"Thank you. I'm off." She stood up and started walking away without turning, the same way Harry did earlier that night.

"Mione!" she was almost at the portrait hole when he shouted after her and only then had she turned her head to look at him, but he only stared at her, not really knowing what to say, other than to ask her to stay, which he still didn't, since he knew it would be too selfish.

"I'll be careful," she said, drawing up a brave smile.

He sighed as she left, leaving him to fret both over Harry _and_ her in his silent, unmoving way. He couldn't blame her, but was worried too, despite all the things he said. Still, that did not make him take his eyes off the Map.

He sat on the couch and stared at the Map, listening to the crackling of the wood in the fire and the ticks of the clock-hands behind him. He thought it a very pointless activity, it was an opinion he voiced many times during the year. He decided that after he confirmed that Malfoy returned to his dormitory he would abandon the map and get back to his homework. That should be enough for Harry.

It was only ten minutes after Hermione left that he saw Malfoy's name reappear on the Map. He relaxed for a moment, thinking that the babysitting was soon to be over, but he felt his world turn upside down when next to the blond git's name appeared the names of five other Death Eaters.

"Fuck!" He shouted loudly, not bothering to think that some of the students in the dorm rooms might hear him.

For a fraction of a moment the only thought in Ron's head was that he would never hear the end of it from Harry, before the weight of the danger everyone was in settled itself in his chest.

His heart started beating at an erratic pace as he bolted to his feet with the Map still in hand, but froze in spot, not knowing what to do next. He knew he needed to sound the alarm, but who was there to tell?

Harry was gone. Dumbledore was gone. He had no idea where Hermione was, though he franticly turned the pages of the Map around, trying to find her name. It showed up once in one of the corners but he overlooked it in his panic.

Professor McGonagall.

He didn't see the name on the Map, but instead it lit up in his mind like a beacon. An Order member. She will know what to do, he thought.

He knew it would take him less than a minute to reach her office if he ran to her at full speed, and with the way the Death Eaters still haven't moved from the spot where he first saw them, they weren't likely to intercept him.

He shoved the Map in his back pocket and started running.

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

The Room of Requirement smelled like dust when he walked in.

That wasn't new to him, though, the Room always smelled like dust.

But just _how much_ it smelled like dust Draco Malfoy realised only after its scent wasn't neutralised when the air was polluted by the musk of a werewolf and the violent perfumes of Pureblood Death Eaters.

That overpowering mixture of scents announced the presence of the Dark Lord's lot even better than the bloody Dark Mark did.

"Good evening," came the low purr of a greeting from a beautiful woman that just happened to be his dreadful aunt as she stepped out of the Vanishing cabinet.

Bellatrix Lestrange offered her hand to her nephew, which he accepted, kissing her fingertips obediently. As he did that, he noticed that she was wearing a corseted black dress that exposed her hourglass figure and made her bosom appear to be a moment from overflowing in the tightness of it. Her face, not so long ago looking as if it belonged to on old hag, was smooth and radiant - enough so that Draco thought that she looked at least a decade younger than her own younger sister, his mother.

He was still trying to figure out how she restored her health and looks so quickly after more than a decade of Azkaban.

But he knew that beauty was wasted on her, since she was as mad as a hatter.

"Good evening, Bella," he said while trying his best to sound at ease, but ended up speaking in a voice more fitting for a man who was about to attend his own funeral.

 _Perhaps that's just what this evening is_ , he thought to himself.

 _The burial of my soul_.

Obviously on a side-mission to annoy and terrify the living life out of him at the same time, Bella let the hand her nephew kissed drop to her side, but with the other she held the door of the Vanishing cabinet open, making travel for the others at Borgin and Burkes impossible until she let go.

The Room of Requirement seemed to have no immediate impact on Bellatrix Lestrange; she was far too preoccupied with the fact that Draco was finally in front of her, after many long months of absence.

"Would you mind closing that?" Draco asked, pointing at the dusty cabinet, wishing _anyone_ to be able to come through, even Greyback, so that he wouldn't have to be alone with his aunt for a moment more than it was necessary. She laughed a bell-like laughter (so unlike her ungraceful cackling after she escaped her prison), not letting go. She was enjoying Draco's discomfort, which was made even greater by her dress, so ridiculously inconvenient for the occasion. Draco guessed that she had chosen to wear it specifically for him - so that the sight of her beauty at its best would be some sort her pervasive _reward_ in the honour of repairing the cabinet and letting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. That's how her pleasure driven, insane mind worked - he knew that much.

A small rattling sound could be heard coming from the cabinet; it was an obvious sign that someone was trying to come through. Bella ignored it, and Draco resisted the urge to clear his throat as a not-so-subtle hint to just get on with it.

She took a step closer to him and grabbed his arm, their faces now mare inches apart, making a shiver run down Draco's spine. With the wide grin on her face and gleaming eyes, Draco realised she looked even hungrier than Greyback usually does when a full moon is approaching.

 _Fuck,_ he almost cursed under his breath.

"My, my, little Draco," she said with a big, seemingly innocent smile and a husky voice, "what a favourable outcome this is", gesturing with a nod of her head to the repaired Vanishing cabinet.

The light from the torches was flickering around them and the semi-darkness of the room was providing an atmosphere Draco did not appreciate but Bella delighted in.

There his aunt goes again, trying to seduce him, without giving them even five minutes of normalcy. She was close enough to him that he could smell the sweetness of her breath (cinnamon?) and he wanted to _move_ , to run, but he couldn't, since not playing her game would be read into as betrayal.

"Your mother and father said to say 'hello and good boy'," she said, nodding her head twice as she said the words 'hello' and 'boy' which gave the doll-like appearance she was probably aiming for.

Draco highly doubted his parents said anything of the sort. He doubted they were even informed of the success of his mission.

He was about to thank her, but instead froze in shock as he heard the doors of the cabinet slam behind her. He almost yelped - so unused he was to any noise in the Room, other than the sound of his own breathing and the spells he performed, but he stopped himself just in time. He realised that the noise the cabinet was now making meant that someone was trying to force their way through.

Bella's smile dissolved into a frown and she moved to step beside her nephew, still not letting go of his arm; the two of them standing in silence like a proper welcome party for the guests who were obviously just about to arrive.

"For fuck's sake, Bella!" shouted Yaxley furiously, immediately upon stepping out of the cabinet. He slammed the door rather violently behind him which made Draco cringe in despair since he didn't feel like going through the ordeal of repairing the cabinet all over again.

"Oh, my, Yaxley," she answered with disinterest and all the false innocence she could muster, "what have I done now?"

Whatever Yaxley was about to bark at her next was to wait for a few moments (and be forgotten) since he suddenly found himself speechless; that was the impact the Room had on him.

The platinum-haired man did a little spin on the spot to observe the vast space around him and all the things that surrounded him. The sight was pretty intimidating, even for a seasoned Death Eater like himself. He made a 'huh' sound as the impact of the Room settled and Draco half-expected him to ask something in the lines of 'are we really in Hogwarts', but in the next moment the man was all business.

"Boy," he said as he turned to Draco, skipping any formal greeting, "in how big of a hurry are we? And where exactly did Dumbledore go?"

Gibbon and Rowle were now behind him as they came out of the cabinet together, Rowle slamming the door just like Yaxley did (adding another nail to Draco's coffin that Death Eaters will be the end of him) and Greyback was behind them before they even managed to get two steps away from the door.

"My informer told me that he flew into Hogsmeade with Potter. They then Disapparated, I don't know where to, and they still haven't come back," came Draco's timid answer. "That was almost an hour ago. The next report will come when they get back to Hogsmeade," he added.

"Informer?" Yaxley asked while still looking around, now presumably for the exit.

"I cast the Imperius curse on Madam Rosmerta," he answered awkwardly, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

Yaxley only nodded as a reply. There was a short silence which Draco felt needed to be filled. "She is the..."

"I bloody well know who the keeper of the Three Broomsticks is," snapped Yaxley at Draco, who paled even more but stood his ground, starting to feel his pride hurt, which was a surprise in itself since he didn't think he had any of it left. He felt that at least a 'thank you' was in order, and not house-elf treatment.

"I apologise," Draco said in a small, but firm voice. Only then did Yaxley turn to him and notice that the boy was as white as a sheet. Though he wasn't on the verge of shivering like his order's youngest member, Yaxley was anxious too, knowing they were about to go after Dumbledore. He became aware of himself and realised he was acting like an arse because of it, so he put his hand on Draco's shoulder and gave it a little squeeze as an apology.

Gibbon, Rowle and Greyback remained silent behind them, taking in their surroundings and not bothering to join the conversation. Bella was being uncharacteristically silent.

"No. Don't apologise," Yaxley said as he took his leather gloves out of his pocket and started putting them on. "You did a marvellous job, my boy. Your father and mother will be proud of you when they hear of it."

Bella huffed at that statement but Draco refrained from commenting, instead he gave Yaxley a small bow with his head.

Draco knew that he would gleam with pride if he heard such words said to him, if only it were any other situation than the one he was currently stuck in. At that moment a big part of him was wishing that he had simply failed his mission. A treacherous little thought overcame his mind – _if only I could lock them all in here with the cabinet and the exit destroyed, and then just pretend that nothing ever happened if someone asks me._

"Let us move along then," Yaxley said and started walking away from the group, only to hear no sound of footsteps following him. He turned to look at Bella who seemed preoccupied with observing the high shelves to her right with the same kind of morbidly curious expression that strongly reminded Draco of Luna Lovegood. Her hand was on Draco's shoulder and he could feel how cold it was even through his shirt.

There was a moment of very awkward silence, with her just holding him like that and Yaxley's face slowly twisting into a grimace.

"Well, then. Shall we?" she asked casually after she felt she made her point across. After all, this was her darling boy's mission and Yaxley had no right taking the lead.

Draco took the hint and started walking, trying to keep his head high instead of staring at the floor as he moved. The wooden floorboards made a creaking noise as he walked, the sound interfering with the little grace he was trying to summon. Yaxley gave a sigh of disgust and waited for them to catch up to him and only started walking once Draco and Bella were ahead of him, allowing them to lead the way.

"I've been told just about everything there was about this room," started Bella conversationally, a sly smile appearing in the corner of her mouth, "but actually being here and seeing how incredible it all is still comes as a shock. The air feels so thick with magic," she said with passion, taking delight in the strange objects surrounding her, from the life sized statue of a lady with the funny wig and ugly crown, to the cage filled with shackled broomsticks.

Draco had no idea how exactly air could be 'thick with magic', nor what she meant by that, so he decided to stay silent and walk straight ahead to the big wooden door that was their exit.

"I wish I've known about this when I was a student," Bella whined with genuine regret in her voice.

"One can only imagine as to what you would use it for," came Yaxley's sarcastic voice from behind them. Bella grinned wide at that, but didn't respond to the provocation. She turned to Draco and winked at her nephew, who in turn tried to act as if he wasn't in possession of peripheral vision.

He felt cold sweat break on his back. He knew that for the seasoned Death Eaters with him this was just another mission, even though it was probably one of the most important ones in the whole war. But in spite all that, Bella would still try to have as much fun as she can and Yaxley would still not mind to childishly bicker.

Perhaps that was their way of relieving tension – or so Draco hoped. He hoped they were still human enough to feel even a bit of fear.

Before Draco was fully acquainted with the Dark Lord's twisted ways, he watched with excitement as the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters entered his first home. It took only days before the Malfoy Manor began losing its charm and beauty as Dark magic began to overflow the rooms.

The air became 'thick with magic', just as his aunt had described the Room of Requirement, except that it wasn't the good kind of magic, but instead the kind that seems to suck the very life out of the place. Draco had no other way to describe how he experienced the subtle change other that he felt like every colour around him seemed to fade just a little into gray. Nothing was 'vibrant' anymore, so he observed.

It took Draco a week before he came out of denial and made peace with the fact that his new Master and most of his lackeys were actually insane. As proud as he was of his lineage, he found that genocide and general oppression was not his cup of tea and not what he wanted to fight for. He was probably the cockiest and most pompous Pureblood that ever entered Hogwarts, but he was soon rethinking his ideals. Next to the lot he had to deal with now, Mudbloods didn't seem half that bad. In fact, he realised that nothing was wrong with them in the first place; it was the teachings of the Purebloods that he was fed all his life that were warped.

He'd take Granger over Bellatrix any day.

The Malfoy family couldn't escape the fact that they had imprisoned themselves into their own home by inviting the maniacs in. They were threading gently from room to room, from day to day while being the hosts in the place their Lord now called Headquarters.

He wanted to blame his father for tarnishing the Manor and the family name beyond repair, but he knew that his father had fallen into the same trap as he himself did - simply by being of the right blood for the Dark Lord. It was his grandfather Abraxas that willingly offered Lucius' life to Voldemort without even asking his opinion on the matter, so Lucius was forced to do the same with Draco, even though he would have preferred to hide him from wizarding Brittan forever, or at least until the Dark Lord fell, even at the cost of his own life.

Even though Draco now cursed the day the Death Eaters entered his first home, here he was, letting them into his second one. He felt his hands tremble, so he quickly dug his fingernails into his palms, certainly leaving crescent marks, hoping that the slight pain might take the shivers away.

But Bella noticed. She put her arm under his and he felt her squeeze his forearm with her hand. A silent way of telling him to have courage for what was up ahead, he guessed.

But he also felt the hairs on his arms stand up as her cold touch reminded him of their Occlumency lessons together, when she volunteered to teach him so that he could protect himself from Dumbledore's invasions, _should they come_. As he marched for the doors of the Room of Requirement, flashbacks came back to him of all the times she breached his inner walls and waltzed into his mind, and then proceeded to dig a little _too deep._

" _Just to motivate you, sweet baby_ ," he remembered her saying as he was kneeling over and gasping at her feet, " _so that you fight your aunt even harder in order to stop her from finding more of your dirty, dirty secrets_ ," she cooed as she held his chin firmly with her cold fingers, holding hard enough for the inside of his cheeks to get ground on his teeth.

It felt to him like she always knew how to find the specific memories he dreaded she should see. The thoughts of a lustful teenager, as much as he tried to help himself not to look her way, but still too many glances slipped to her inappropriately low cleavage during dinner, when she would lean across the table invitingly. Nobody noticed that she only did that when her nephew sat right across from her.

In the usual crowd at the Manor the only one to decipher the hidden meaning of her body language was his father.

" _Son," started Lucius with a serious tone, "if Bella tries to seduce you..."_

" _Father," Draco hissed, urging Lucius to stop talking,_ knowing _she would find the memory of the conversation and then Merlin only knows what would happen. She would probably take it as approval and encouragement, as insane as she was._

" _Let her," finished his father gravely._

 _What would his mother think if she heard those words escape his father's lips?_

 _It would be the finishing crack that would split her heart in half._

"Am I beautiful, Draco?" Bella asked in the lowest of whispers with a dreamy look in her eyes, low enough for Draco to convince himself that they couldn't be overheard, but he still panicked and thought that _this_ was not something he wanted to deal with right now. Draco let go of her hand as if it had burned him, feeling as if she could read his thoughts by just touching him, as if she knew that he was thinking about her. But he wasn't looking her in the eye, _so she couldn't,_ he tried to calm himself.

 _You're mad_ , is what he wanted to say in reply, but he hung his head low and decided to ignore the question.

She smiled with delight even though she didn't get an answer, taking the newly formed pink tint of her nephews' cheeks as a compliment.

"Stop bullying the boy," said the blond man behind them.

 _Oh, fuck my life_ , Draco thought. _How the fuck did he hear her?_

"Shut your mouth, Yaxley," she spun to bark at him with all of the sweetness from her voice gone, making Draco shudder.

The summer break of his fifth year, with his aunt living and recovering under his father's roof, Draco spent petrified, fearing every rustle of silk in front of his door and dreading every moment of life, as he knew his mad aunt was debating whether she should bed him or not.

Since Purebloods were notorious for marrying within the family, he knew that the fact that they were so closely related would not be an argument to stop her from bullying him into having an affair with her.

He remembered being twelve and proudly scanning the pages of the Pureblood family books, looking up the Malfoy family tree. He remembered the way his stomach twisted when he realised that his great-grandmother was actually the niece of his great-grandfather. He closed the book gently and put it back onto the shelf with a silent promise to himself to never look at it again in hope of forgetting what he had read. It was one of the many eye openers on the subject of why Pureblood traditions are so frowned upon. He knew now that if Bella demanded to have him, no one but his mother and father would probably even blink. In the new extremist circumstances it would probably be considered socially acceptable for them to have an affair.

The Dark Lord denied his favourite soldier nothing and if it had come to that, Draco knew that by default he had no right to deny _himself_ to her. He didn't need his father telling him that.

They finally reached the ebony doors of the Room of Requirement.

"I'll go first to check if there's someone out there," Draco said without stopping and as he did he felt the entire group slow down and stop to wait for him. He realised that he had just given out his first command, and was obeyed. He knew that he should feel powerful, but he only felt misery.

He stepped into the marble hallway and closed the door behind him, but he didn't let go of the handle so that he wouldn't have to call for the Room again. He stood still for several deep, long breaths and just listened to the silence of the castle. There was no magic he could cast without revealing himself to anyone that might be out there, so his instinct that there was no one around to see or hear him would have to be good enough.

It was his last chance to back out, he realised. He could block the Room's doors or make a distraction for long enough and call the Order members and raise the alarm with his Patronus. He knew that the hand from the other side, from the Light, was still extended, and that if he reached for it he would fall on soft ground and be safe and protected and that his role in the war would be done, lest he chose to enter the battlefront again willingly. Which he wouldn't.

But if he was to save his own skin, he would end his mother's life with that action. The Dark Lord wouldn't kill his father because he simply couldn't afford to lose him, even though he has made many mistakes already, but the wife, the _mother_ who served no use to him other that a replaceable hostess of the headquarters would be removed as an act of revenge for the son's betrayal.

So he turned and opened the door wide for the deadly group to enter. In that moment he realised that the marking of his arm was not the action that sold his soul, instead it was the simple action of opening a door.

Draco stood with his hand on the doorknob and watched the group of Death Eaters exit the room one by one. The last to leave was Bellatrix. He noticed that she was now serious and focused; the wild grin was nowhere to be seen. _Good_ , Draco thought. _At least no more funny business_.

He watched as she stepped out into the dim-lit hallway, her heels suddenly making clicking sounds as they transitioned from wood to marble. Draco let go of the heavy door and watched it slowly close behind her as she stepped away. Bellatrix was looking inside the Room over her shoulder and as the door was closing, Draco saw a strange change in her expression. Her pupils diluted in an instant due to the sudden excitement she felt, as if she were a cat, and he had to stop himself from shouting out her name as he saw her grab the handle and run right back into the Room of Requirement.

The rest of the group was unfazed by the new development (Yaxley only frowning again) since they were all very much used to Bella's erratic behaviour, but Draco rushed behind her to see why in Merlin's name was his aunt causing an unnecessary delay.

He shouted her name once he was inside, slamming the door behind him but stopped in his tracks at the entrance, shocked, as he realised that the Room of Requirement _changed_ for her.

The dusty hall packed with junk in which he spent most of his year was gone and was now replaced by a small, generic Slytherin dorm bedroom. There was nothing personal in the room that would add character to it; there were no trunks peeking from under the beds, no clothes or books scattered over the chairs. It looked the same as the dorm rooms look when the students enter them at the beginning of every school year.

The exception, Draco noticed in his astonishment, were the windows. The Slytherins resided underground in the dungeons, but now, where should have been stone walls, stood giant floor to wall windows with hip high rails and dark green velvet curtains; the view was that of the Forbidden forest.

 _How the fuck does this work?_

Draco was quite impressed for a moment with the extent of Hogwarts' magical power, but he soon felt only panic as he saw his aunt open one of the windows and lean over the iron railing. If someone was looking up from the grounds, would they see the windows that weren't supposed to be there?

There was no time left for wonder at the castle's incredible abilities, since it had just given Bellatrix the means to fulfil her nasty wish - whatever that was, he thought, and he had to stop her. She had already opened one of the windows and Draco felt a gust of ice-cold wind blow straight into his face; a salute from the rowdy Scottish sky that was just about to be marred by Dark magic.

"Come, look at this," he heard her shout out to him with childlike excitement as her onyx coloured, waist-long hair flowed in the wind as she leaned dangerously far over the railing. Draco took a step toward her and saw immediately what made her so giddy.

The Astronomy tower was plain in their view.

He immediately realised what she was up to.

"Bella, don't!" he half-screamed in vain as he rushed toward her, only to see her draw her walnut wand from her sleeve and point it at the tower while quite maniacally shouting ' _Morsmordre',_ just as he was about to grab her forearm.

Green light flashed above the grounds, but no echo of her voice come back to them from the outside. Instead, it sounded as if she had shouted at a wall inside the room and yet the Dark Mark was visibly looming above Hogwarts.

 _That'll give Potter and Dumbledore a scare,_ the thought flashed briefly through his mind, as if they were only setting up the scene for a prank instead for a murder that _he_ was about to commit. Anger would have boiled within him if fear hadn't overtaken him first.

"Why _the fuck_ did you do that?!", he screamed at her, almost hysterically, tossing all grace aside and not caring that he sounded like Myrtle when she thoroughly riled herself up. "Now they'll know that we're here! We were supposed to remain unnoticed until we reached the tower," he exclaimed, holding his head with his hands and gripping his hair with his fingers in a desperate effort to calm himself.

The truth was, Draco was magically much weaker than Bellatrix was, so he couldn't feel the heavy shield of the schools glamours cover the windows and themselves from view of anyone that might be looking at the changed side of the castle's walls. Bellatrix was well-aware of her nephew's ignorance, but she didn't bother herself with giving him an explanation.

"Calm down, wittle baby," instead she only cooed at him.

"No one will be able to pinpoint where the spell came from, and that is all that matters," she said as she closed the window behind her so that the cold wind couldn't abuse them anymore.

"If the fools rush to the tower before us, we will pounce upon them like wolves on cattle. And even if we meet someone in the halls, well," she paused for a second and tilted her head slightly while widening her eyes to freak him out just a bit more, the maniacal grin returning to her face, "who bloody cares? We'll kill them all anyway," she added casually as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 _As if whoever they would attack wouldn't fight back_ , Draco's mind screamed.

"But it's foolishto cast the signal _before_ we've even reached the tower," he said in a panicked voice.

"A part of the Order is always on patrol, it's not just the professors, and you know that. What if they intercept us? They'll know exactly where we want to go!"

"We'll have to deal with the Order one way or the other, there is no avoiding them, no matter what we do," she said and started walking in the direction of the door, but stopped as a frown came over her beautiful face and she turned her head toward him. With the look she gave him Draco felt as if she was staring at him with the kind of surprise one would feel as if he had just Apparated by her side and she had not been expecting him.

"Nephew, why are you so frightened?" she asked and he realised that it was a genuine question, as if what lies ahead of them isn't something for him to frown deepened, but in the next moment she wiped it off her face and replaced it with a pretty smile.

By then Draco really thought he might piss himself out of fear of her.

"They won't be able to beat us," she said in a surprisingly gentle voice and walked back to him. Raising her fingers to his lips she shushed him before he was able to say anything else that would annoy her.

"Enough of this, baby. Let's go," she ordered softly.

And so he followed her out of the Room of Requirement with his head bowed down, feeling like a dog on an invisible leash.

He was far from convinced that she was right to feel so calm, but it didn't matter one way or the other.

They were at a disadvantage from the moment they first stepped out of the Room because they were not aware of the fact that the Golden trio was in the possession of a map that shows where everyone in the entire school was currently located. While he still tried to reassure himself that they were unnoticed despite the glowing Dark mark above the school, their position was already pinpointed. There was a battle ahead of them before they even reach the Astronomy tower, with or without his mad aunt doing what she had just done.

* * *

Thank you for reading, please drop a review and tell me what you think of the story so far!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: As you will soon notice, I'm breaking canon a bit by deciding to keep Snape as the Potions professor throughout the trio's sixth year. Since the story is currently set at the very end of that school year, this change will not make a big impact on the plot, but it helps me tweak some things better. I just wanted to let you know so that you don't get confused with the timeline.

Also, sorry about the mayor delay between updates. That should be fixed now, more info is on my profile page.

* * *

Severus Snape was lying on his bed in the semi-darkness of his bedroom.

For the sake of precision; the room was a seamlessly conjoined bedroom, library and living area - and a surprisingly beautiful and comfortable one, considering whom it belonged to, since anyone who spent more than a minute in the Potions Master's presence would probably imagine that he lived in a cave or a den, with everything covered in green fungi.

Lying flat on his back, he had been staring at the ceiling for over twenty minutes now. With his hands joined on his chest and only the occasional blink of his eyes, he gave a rather good impression of being a dead man.

It was an exceptionally rainy night with the thunder rolling more and more frequently and it fitted his mood very much, since his mind, in the opposition to the stillness of his body, wreaked like a storm.

To be put simply, he felt as if he had hit a brick wall with his face whilst moving at a very high velocity.

During the course of the thirty nine years he has walked the Earth he had known some very hard times.

From his parents' untimely death to the murder of the woman he loved (which he had indirectly caused, much to his own horror), combined with the horrors he had to witness (and sometimes commit) in the service of Lord Voldemort, one would imagine that by now he would be immune to stress (or at least – to very high levels of it).

One would not imagine, however, that the exact opposite of it would be happening to him now; from the moment his eyes opened at the crack of dawn to the moment when sleep overtook him in the late hours of the evening, Severus Snape felt like he was suffocating.

The inevitable storm that had been brewing for two years now was finally about to hit, he knew that much. Something that had been 'a matter of years' had become 'a matter of months, possibly weeks' and he noticed it too late, preoccupied as he was with trying to heal Dumbledore's injury (which would most likely prove to be fatal), trying to help Draco and trying to protect the Golden Trio.

Trying.

Trying his hardest.

And not succeeding at all.

His life had, for the first time ever, come to a standstill.

Apart from the Potions curriculum he was teaching the children, nothing that he was doing, no matter how great his effort and dedication were, seemed to be producing results.

Draco was avoiding him as if he was the embodiment of a medieval plague and was never far from screaming curses at him on the rare occasions when he managed to corner him alone. The fact that Potter was up to something was clear from the obvious weight loss and bags under his eyes suggesting a chronic lack of sleep.

And Albus' life expectance was still two to three months.

Considering all the circumstances, the absolutely _nightmarish_ circumstances, he found himself wishing for the more peaceful years to make a comeback. Like the year of the Triwizard Tournament. Or the year of the dirty mutt's escape from Azkaban when there were Dementors behind every corner one rounded. He would even take another Basilisk crawling through the castle pipes.

Anything was better than this.

Despite the chill of the room he lay half-naked on his bed. He had previously taken a shower, so a few beads of water still clung onto his naked chest and the only garment protecting his modesty was a slightly damp towel covering his nether regions. The Potions Master's long hair was freshly washed and unbound, half wet and spilling itself over the white bed-sheet like a river of black ink.

The silence of the room was disrupted by a barely noticeable 'pop'.

It was the sound of a house-elf Apparating into the room.

The highly paid and much cherished servants of Hogwarts were not known for having favourites among the children and staff of the castle, having so little interaction with them, but naturally there were some exceptions. The most famous one was that of Dobby the elf and his good friend Harry Potter, but there was also another one, secret to almost every inhabitant of the castle, apart from the headmaster himself.

The ancient looking she-elf that had just Apparated next to Snape's bed was a peculiar one. She was wearing a very pretty, maroon dress, which was a strange choice of garment even among the free elves; but stranger even more were her dark (but still noticeably blue) eyes that radiated an intelligence behind them that seemed to rival even the Potions Master's own.

She had come to him as inheritance after his grandparents from him mother's side of the family died. He had given her a shirt soon after meeting with her, along with the invitation from Dumbledore to become a staff member, which she had both gracefully accepted. However, she had one condition, and that was to be allowed to look after her former Master whenever the occasion called for it, which Snape accepted, not thinking anything would ever come out of it.

Later it turned out that with the dismissal of the Prince's family servant he had acquired himself a permanent personal babysitter.

As it turned out, she had loved his heartbroken grandmother very much and was asked to promise that one day when her grandson Severus inherited her, if he turned out to be a good man (that is, opposite to his father and grandfather) that she promises to take good care of him. Luckily for her, her new master turned out to be the very best of men (being very kind to her and offering to give her freedom and employment on their very first meeting, instead of kicking her to establish his authority, as many other new masters did with their house-elves), so she proceeded to work and keep her promise to her beloved mistress.

Her name was Libby and she had not been called for by the Potions Master, and the tray in her hands with tea and sandwiches was not wanted either.

"Haven't we talked about this, Libby?," he asked as he brought his hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, "because I distinctly remember talking about this."

"We have indeed, Master, and on many occasions, but it will not stop me trying to help that wounded body of yours recover," she said and snapped her fingers - the gesture making the giant wardrobe doors on the other side of the room open wide and a set of clothes flew towards the bed and landed next to him in a perfectly organised pile, socks and underwear on top.

Another thing that was also striking about the she-elf was that her speech lacked any grammatical errors which were so common among the other house elves. The correction was the result of spending most of the evenings of her life having long conversations with her mistress who found in her a better friend and companion than she did in any of her Pureblood circle she was forced to mingle in.

Snape sighed and sat up on the bed. He started dressing himself while Libby was fussing with the dinner tray and he asked about news about Potter from Dobby.

"Oh, nothing new, Master. Tonight he snuck them an apple pie in hope of awakening the boy's appetite, but apparently the boy was not there," Libby said.

This got Snape's attention and he lifted his brows as a form of a question, but Libby quelled his fast growing worry.

"Another lesson with headmaster Dumbledore, or so it would seem," she said and he exhaled loudly as a response, thanking Merlin for another day gone by without Potter getting himself (and the rest of them as consequence) into mortal danger.

He looked at his friend after he pulled his trousers on, his chest still naked, and noticed Libby staring intently at his abdomen with a frown marring her already wrinkled face.

He knew well what she was staring at so he didn't mark upon it, wishing to avoid another sermon on malnourishment.

Magic keeps a wizards' (or witches') body strong and powerful, without any exercise required. That is, it keeps their muscles lean. Any powerful wizard, even if he was fat, would be surprisingly strong (a Muggle would even think him supernaturally strong). Severus Snape was magically stronger than most so he naturally had a very fit body, and was usually the picture of health. Lately, however, he ate much less than he was supposed to, and it was beginning to show in the form of fat loss. That was why Libby was staring at his abdomen, which was well on its way of looking like it belonged to a Muggle fitness model in a few months' time, than to a professor who spent his days with his hair hanging over a cauldron.

"Won't you eat just a little, Master?" she asked with sincere sadness in her voice, feeling more sorry than ever for him now that his cheeks have started to hollow out and the rest of him was becoming dangerously thin.

He got up from the bed, put on the rest of the clothes and went to sit on his couch in front of the coffee table where Libby had set the tray. He ate mechanically, but she was nevertheless pleased that he ate most of what she had brought him.

"Thank you, Libby," he said, adding nothing more to it, but allowing those words to speak volumes on gratefulness when he looked into her eyes.

She smiled a grandmotherly smile at him, took his tray and Apparated away.

He leaned back into the couch cushions and allowed himself ten more minutes of rest, so that his dinner may set in his stomach before going back into his personal laboratory to attempt making another potion that might help cure Dumbledore.

Every day was exactly the same, he thought, defeated.

He didn't know than in ten minutes' time there was going to be a loud banging on his door.

* * *

When Ron reached professor McGonagall's office, he was panting heavily from his lengthy sprint. He leaned his head on the door from sheer exhaustion, beads of sweat already forming on his forehead and was knocking as loud as he dared, hoping that she hadn't already retired for the night.

He would have been screwed if that was the case, not knowing where her living chambers were.

Luckily for him, despite the late hour, the professor was still correcting fifth year essays at her desk. In the near silence of the room, with only the cracks of tinder to be heard in the fireplace and the scratching of quill on paper, she had no trouble noticing the rushed footsteps headed her way. She even had enough time to put away the ink pot and get up out of her chair to await the unknown visitor standing. As the first knock came, without bothering to first ask who it was, she drew her wand and magically opened it.

That was how Ron found himself facing a slightly flustered professor McGonagall as she stood pointing her wand straight at his nose.

"Weasley," she said as her mouth drew into a thin line; thinking to herself that, of course, who else other than Potter or Granger could it have possibly been?

"What is it this time?" the professor asked in the same exasperated tone of voice she always used when she realised that her favourite Gryffindors came to her with news of trouble. She was almost certain it _was_ actually Ron, but still remained alert without lowering her wand. Merlin knew that these days even children are able to brew a decent batch of Pollyjuice potion. If Granger could do it, she wouldn't put it past Malfoy either, so for all she knew, it could be _him_ in front of her in the next act of his Dark mischief.

Without any thought to rank, house points or possible injury, and most importantly - indicating absolute trust, Ron moved his body to the side to avoid his face making contact with her wand and took a step further into the office. The reckless bravado while at wandpoint was enough for McGonagall to lower her wand.

Malfoy wouldn't trust her not to hex.

Ron made a beeline for her work desk and actually sat himself on it (right on the pile of freshly marked essays, certainly smearing ink with his arse), scandalising his professor in the process of it. He doubled over to his side while pressing a hand at his stomach to help relieve the pressure of nearly hyperventilating. He was not far from fainting.

"Malfoy let five Death Eaters into the castle," he said, the words leaving his mouth in such a rush that the professor almost failed to catch what he said.

McGonagall's eyes widened slightly and her left hand slowly moved to her heart; the only visible signs that she registered what he just said.

There was a short moment of silence as she stood stunned, though two thoughts in her mind formed and clashed rapidly as if they were in their own time frames, certainly lasting more than the three breaths Ron inhaled before she asked him for more information. The first was that Hogwarts was an impenetrable fortress for such persons, hence there being no secret passage Malfoy could have led them to that would have done them any good; but the second (and much more ominous one) was that they could have been _let in_ by someone more skilled than a school boy, in case they actually were there.

 _Severus,_ the name rang in her mind as if a gong was hit and almost instantly a sharp pang of guilt struck her; punishment for traitorous doubt of her friend and colleague who has proven himself trustworthy over and over again.

But the brand was still on his arm. And that is not something one can _truly_ take out of an equation such as this one was.

"Weasley, what are you on about?" she asked in a quiet tone of voice that indicated that she just might believe what he said, despite her natural instinct of telling him that Hogwarts' wards cannot be breached and that he was probably feverish.

Instead of speaking, since his throat felt as if it was on fire, Ron drew the Marauders Map out of his back pocket and held it high in his hand. He even gave it a little wave as so to make the parchment rustle.

He felt it was explanation enough.

He was quite correct, since Minerva McGonagall immediately knew what she was looking at.

After the Golden Trio's third year fiasco - the grand rescue of Sirius Black, the knowledge of the existence of the Marauders Map spread among the school faculty like wildfire.

It was greeted with a great amount of surprise, along with Flitwick's beaming pride for 'teaching the boys their charms-work well'. Though Harry did not know of it (since he wasn't told), Lupin's decision to return the map to him was not his alone. It was debated in an emergency faculty meeting and all of the professors, excluding Snape (whose argument was that it was only a ticket for getting them into even more trouble), agreed that it would be prudent to return the Map to its rightful owner - Harry.

They agreed that the map was his family inheritance and, after all, it had no way of doing actual harm, so they had no arguments as to why it should be kept away. Though, the very knowledge of its existence still made most of them feel a bit uneasy.

Seeing the Map was enough for any doubt in Ron's words to vanish. That map had proved its worth by exposing Peter Pettigrew and she would have been a fool to doubt it now.

"Tell me," she said and took a very deep breath to prepare herself for Ron's answer.

"They were on the third floor when I was still in our dormitory. They got through the Room of Requirement," he said.

She found out about the Room after the Dumbledore's army fiasco last year. The professor's reaction to his statement was a simple nod, a whoosh of a wand, and then a pitcher of water appeared in front of him, which he grabbed and started drinking from not a split second later. Professor McGonagall watched the red-haired boy clench his thirst, all the while thinking to herself that, _yes_ , such an entrance into the castle indeed makes sense, even though she didn't know the mechanics behind it.

Ron watched her as she walked to the table and next to him, putting her hand on the dark wood. Her brow was furrowed when her gaze went back to the Map. She made a quick decision and without saying a word to Ron she moved her wand in a swift, fluid movement. She saw Ron take a step back with a panicked expression on his face as she shouted _Expecto Patronum!_

The white tabby cat formed in an instant and floated midair waiting for instructions. _"_ Hogwarts fireplace, enemy breach" was the only message it was given. She knew who was at the Headquarters tonight and who that message would reach.

"Now, now, mister Weasley, move away from the fireplace."

As she said those words to him, much to Ron's surprise, she gripped his forearm and started dragging him away from her desk. An unwelcome memory of his hand around her waist during the dance practice for the Yule ball came back into his mind, since that was the last time he was that close to her, but it left his mind the moment he saw the red of the fire start turning green.

* * *

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was livelier than it had ever been. The kitchen shone with a warm yellow light of star shaped Christmas decorations that weren't taken down during the cleanup after the holidays by a mutual decision of Sirius and Mrs. Weasley. In the air lingered a faint smell of cinnamon topping from the apple pie that was freshly baked an hour ago, but the overpowering notes in the air were the combined union of Firewhiskey and Butterbeer.

At the head of the kitchen table sat a handsome man in his mid-thirties. His silky, wavy black hair reached just to his shoulders. He was lean but noticeably well fed. On his face was the same devilish grin that made all the girls go crazy about him during his final years at Hogwarts. If a stranger turned up at number 12 Grimmauld Place at that moment and looked at Sirius Black, he would probably not believe that it was the same man that suffered twelve years under the torturous presence of the dreadful Azkaban guards. On his right side sat Remus with his wife Tonks and on his left were Arthur and Molly Weasley.

Cheers erupted every few minutes. It was only natural; they had a very good reason for their celebration.

Walburga Black's portrait had finally and permanently been removed, after almost two years of every Order member that ever came into the house trying their hardest to take it down. Even Snape gave it a go after Sirius finally managed to rile up his competitive spirit, but much to everyone's surprise, it was Tonks who succeeded in the task by altering and strengthening a Vanishing charm. She took a big chunk out of the wall as well, but Sirius didn't mind one bit.

"You know, we could use the hole if we even out the edges a bit and put a big flower vase in it, or something similar. It would lift up the living room immensely," said Molly cheerfully, already deciding what flowers she should pick from her garden.

"Great idea Molly," said Sirius after taking a big sip of his beer, "but if we blast the hole in a bit more and add some shelves we could add another liquor cabinet to the house," he finished and started laughing while he vigorously patted his pink-haired cousin who sat next to him. Tonks' cheek colour matched her hair but at the same time she looked overjoyed. She was so glad to be useful to him for once. After all, she was the one who most often woke the old lady from her slumber and set her up for a round of screaming.

"Sirius, you have two liquor cabinets in the house already, you don't need another one," said Remus which resulted in Sirius making faces and almost sticking his tongue out.

"Well you do have a point mate, but..." said Sirius before Remus interrupted him.

"Pink and white roses would do best, I think," said Remus, ignoring Sirius and turning to Molly who gave him a radiant smile, and Sirius disappointedly tried to hide himself behind his beer. He knew he still had some growing up to do but at the same time he felt that Remus has had too much of it.

Through all the noise the happily drunken group made, there were still soft sniffling sounds to be heard at Sirius's feet. Clutching the leg of his master, whom he liked very much nowadays (thanks to Hermione, who didn't stop pestering Sirius until he gave in completely into 'being nicer to the poor old house elf', because it was the only way to get the little witch to stop pestering him whenever she had the chance, which was often and he had no way to escape her, much to the delight of Ron and Harry who quite enjoyed seeing their favourite girl pester someone other than them for a while), Kreacher cried mournfully.

After a few months of careful practice of not cursing or screaming at the elf that pretty much helped his cousins set up a murder attempt on his life, Sirius realised that Kreacher truly _was_ a miserable creature that has never known love or affection in the Black ancestral home, much like Sirius himself - just like Hermione insisted. Pity evolved into affection after the house became cleaner than it had ever been, outshining even Mrs. Weasley's efforts, and after the elf showed remarkable cooking skills that helped Sirius not only get healthier, but ensured that he would almost always have guests for lunch or dinner, much to their mutual delight.

And after half a year, even Hermione transgressed from Filthy Mudblood to Young Miss.

"There, there, Kreacher, lighten up," said Sirius in an attempt of consoling the miserable creature at his feet as he patted his old head, knowing full well that the portrait was the only companion Kreacher had for over a decade, but he also knew that it wasn't _too_ great of a loss for him since he barely ever spoke to the portrait in its last days. He knew Kreacher would get over it in a day or two, so he didn't worry too much.

He picked up his Butterbeer and took a sip, not taking his hand off Kreacher's shoulders.

"You know, maybe not a liquor cabinet after all," said Sirius with a thoughtful voice. His eyes acquired a very distant look.

"Oh, it's splendid that you agree," said Molly whose eyes widened as she found herself pleasantly surprised until Sirius continued, ignoring her comment.

"I think the best way to commemorate my mother would be if we set up one of those big Muggle TV's you've been obsessing over lately, Arthur," he said, nudging his beer bottle in Arthur's direction, enjoying himself as Molly gave an exasperated sigh and set everyone laughing again.

"Hermione and Harry have been telling me all about those," said Sirius with glee as he imagined the reactions the rest of the family portraits would have to the new change in the room. Phineas Nigellus would probably have a fit and refuse to enter his frame in Grimmauld place until the atrocity, as he was certain he would call it, was removed.

Drunken laughter cracked in the room again. "You should talk to my dad about that," said Tonks. "He and mum invested in a home theatre last summer. It's bloody brilliant, feels like you have your head in a Pensieve except that, well, your body is not inside it," she said as eloquently as she managed.

"Yes, brilliant idea, Tonks," said Arthur whose interest was piqued to the max, "Teddy would know all about that stuff and Sirius, I'm sure you'd let me investigate the technology when you wouldn't be using it," he added with a grin.

"You know boys, I really don't think that we should..." started Molly, but suddenly, caught by surprise in the midst of her sentence, she shrieked almost as loudly as Walburga Black used to as the white light of an unexpected Patronus appeared above the centre of the table.

Sirius and Tonks spilled their drinks in the process of jumping to their feet and Arthur sent his chair toppling over behind him. Molly and Remus froze in spot while still sitting, but had their wands out before the Patronus even finished taking shape. They all watched as the white light of the Patronus assembled itself into a medium sized tabby cat.

"Hogwarts fireplace, enemy breach," said the familiar commanding voice of their former Transfiguration professor.

'Hogwarts fireplace' they all knew was short for 'Floo in with only the command 'Hogwarts', you will be redirected to the fireplace where I am located'. The identity of the enemies who had breached the castle was obvious, but 'how' was the question that instantly formed in everyone's minds.

"Kreacher, Pepperup," shouted Sirius the instant the Patronus vanished in a puff of white smoke. With a snap of elfish fingers five red bottles of what was officially known as the cure for the common cold, but also took away drunkenness, appeared in front of every person at the table. Mrs. Weasley, who had no need for it because she only drank pumpkin juice the entire night, was first to dash for the fireplace. The redheaded lioness had cubs there that were probably in need of rescue. She grabbed a generous amount of the Floo powder and almost jumped into the kitchen fireplace and shouted out the clear commands so that the green flames would take her away.

After her disappearance, in between sips everyone walked into the fireplace and shouted their heading. Since Sirius was the house owner and was the one with the keys to the wards, he knew he had to be the last one to leave so, as he watched his friends disappear into the green flames, he turned to speak to Kreacher.

"Kreacher," he called with a serious voice. The elf jumped up on the table before him and for some unexplainable reason was holding a rather large frying pan in his small arms, looking very much battle ready. Sirius had half a mind to take him with them, but cast the thought away from his mind only a moment after it had formed.

Hermione would have him flayed if she'd find out. Besides, someone had to hold the fort.

The flames shone in the bright old eyes and he looked nothing like the mean old elf Sirius knew as a child.

"Guard the house. Do not let anyone enter our wards in my absence," he said, and realizing that Tonks was still to enter the fireplace and that he had a few more seconds, he continued. "I'll be back very soon. Try not to fuss too much," he added, smiling.

In a proud voice, as grave as his master's, Kreacher replied: "Yes, Master Black."

After hearing those words he heard the whoosh that signalled that Tonks had left, so Sirius took a step into the flames and left the Order headquarters, heading for battle.

He drank the Pepperup in one gulp as the flames were consuming him and he arrived safely into professor McGonagall's office.

Unhappily sober.

* * *

"Check the Map again, Mister Weasley. The Order will come through the Floo at any moment now."

"Yes, professor," Ron said and spread the map over her desk as McGonagall moved to stand next to him. He opened it on the page that showed the hallway in front of the Room of Requirement. There he saw the still unmoving names of Yaxley, Greyback, Gibbon and Rowle, but Malfoy and Lestrange were missing.

 _Where the bloody hell are they?_

True to McGonagall's word, for less than ten seconds the two of them stood silent and waited for the reinforcements as they examined the Map. He wanted to ask the professor who was coming, but he had a vague mental image already. But that still didn't mean that he expected his mother to run out of the green flames of the fireplace and shoot toward him to trap him into a smothering embrace.

"Ron," she said as she put her warm hands on his cheeks and turned to professor McGonagall whilst holding her youngest son, "has anyone been injured?" Molly asked, looking possibly more alarmed than Ron had ever seen her.

"No, they haven't," McGonagall replied. "Not as far as I know of. Wait a bit," she waved with her hand slightly as if to shoo away the next question forming on Molly's mouth as she gestured towards the fireplace.

Thunder cracked in the distance at the same time as Sirius stepped onto the dark oak floor of professor McGonagall's office.

She knew he was the last to arrive. Immediately she turned to Ron.

"Mister Weasley, report," said McGonagall, sounding more secure than before as the five new Order members arrived.

Ron picked up the map again, the same way he did before as a form of explanation. Everyone present understood what the gesture meant and he also knew that, though he was the only person in the room that had actually seen the Room of Requirement, they all knew of it and its approximate location.

"We've been monitoring Draco Malfoy's movements since the school-year started. Tonight he entered the Room of Requirement alone, but when he came back out he had Yaxley, Lestrange, Greyback, Gibbon and Rowle with him," he said and then gave them a momentary pause to allow for the inevitable gasps of surprise as the new group made peace with the severity of the situation.

"They are still in front of the Room, but Malfoy and Lestrange went back into the Room and still haven't come back."

Just as he said those words the two names appeared again on the map and the Death Eater squad immediately started moving in single file, led on by Lestrange.

"No, here they are. Moving toward us," he said and the words came out almost as a whine, since he didn't know it the new development was good or bad news.

As soon as he finished professor McGonagall spoke up again, taking charge at once.

"We have no time to wait and see where they are headed, we must to intercept them. We seem to have less than two minutes. Mister Weasley," she said, turning to Ron, "I will Disillusion you. You will leave before us, turn right at the end of the hallway, get to the other side of the castle and go down to the dungeons to alert professor Snape. If you start now you will not run into any of them."

Molly Weasley immediately made a protesting gasp, but her husband put his hand on her shoulder.

"He will be running _away_ from danger, dear. And we need Severus with us," he said in his soft, reassuring voice and Molly knew it would be silly to argue now when they had so little time.

Professor McGonagall cast the spell and suddenly he disappeared from their sight; the only thing giving him away was the slightest shimmer as he blended in with the background so well.

And so Ron started running again.

* * *

Please review and tell me what you think of the story so far!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: In this chapter we are finally meeting up with the story's summary. Thank you for being patient with me while I reshaped canon into what I needed it to be in order for my story to have a solid base. Also, guest reviewers to whom I can't directly reply, thank you so much for your kind words!

* * *

Hermione felt nervous, to put it mildly.

Inwardly, she felt like grabbing fistfuls of hair and pulling hard whilst pacing in a circle; outwardly, though, nervous was a good adjective to describe her state. Her brow was furrowed, but at least her bushy hair was still intact and as of yet the floor had not been worn out in a suspiciously circular pattern.

After she left Ron in the Gryffindor common room she walked half the way to the Headmaster's tower and stopped to sit on a bench under one of the massive windows opposite the Arithmancy classroom. There was no point in going any further. She was now at the spot where Harry's path might branch off, should he choose to go back to the Gryffindor dorm by any other route than the one she had come by.

Also, she didn't want to appear too overbearing by positioning herself as an additional sentry next to the griffon that stood by the Headmaster's doors.

Now, being where she was, she had to content herself with staring out the window as a pastime. She was not seated for two minutes before the portraits around her started protesting about the light of her wand, so she had to _Nox_ it out and remain with only just the bit of moonlight shining onto her surroundings.

Though she fidgeted and remained generally restless, she knew that there was nothing much left for her to do other than to sit and wait for Harry to appear.

She reminded herself again that Harry was not actually _late,_ since there was no specified time of his arrival back, but she still felt that the endeavour was taking longer than it should. She had a bad feeling about the whole business that just wouldn't stop gnawing at her. She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the actual temperature of the castle and despite telling herself that it was just her impatience getting the best of her, she just couldn't buy it.

And so she sat there, watching the tops of the trees of the Forbidden forest and hoping for suspicious movements that might indicate Thestral activity (she was still fascinated by the beasts, even though she thankfully couldn't see them), until a flash of green light illuminated the castle grounds and partially even a bit of the hallway she was in.

Instantly, sheer instinct told her body to make an extra effort to freeze any movements as her mind processed the silent change of light.

Every well educated witch and wizard knows that, as far as magic goes, green is a bad colour. Though there are some healing spells that shine green when cast, most of them are supposed to be used when healing a wound caused by Dark magic, so even they fall under bad news.

When one counted the intensity of the light into the equation, it became quite easy to deduce that someone had just cast the bloody Dark Mark above Hogwarts.

Hermione slowly stood up on the bench she was previously sitting on and pressed her face to the cool glass of the window in hope of getting a better view of the left side of the castle. There was no one on the grounds, as far as she could see. Above the rooftops she could see a greenish glare, but not the distinct shape which she feared she would see. It's not that she actually _wanted_ there to be a Dark Mark, but a simple process of elimination told her analytical mind that there was nothing much else that there _could_ be, other than what she feared.

Her mind, renowned for its quickness, already decided on a course of action.

 _Professor Snape._

She should go and rouse professor Snape because, in the windowless dungeons the Slytherins abided in, he was most certainly unaware of what just happened and would remain so unless someone went there to fetch him!

She knew that Professor McGonagall and most of the other professors would probably have a good view of the source of the light so there was no point in going to them. The other two Order members that Dumbledore had deployed to patrol the corridors and the grounds she had no way of reaching, unless she accidentally stumbled upon them, so there was no point in trying to hunt them down.

Just as she was about to hop off the bench and start her journey to the depths of the castle, something above the edge of the Forbidden forest caught her eye.

Two fast moving shapes.

Two people on brooms, she realised after a moment.

Someone was flying toward Hogwarts and she didn't even have to think about it, so fast it hit her – it must be Harry and professor Dumbledore returning! They were flying on her level in the moment she noticed them, but she realised that they were now ascending. And with how high the green light source was...

 _The Astronomy Tower!_

She hoped against hope that there was someone else to alert Snape because she had no time for it anymore. She broke into a run.

She was in the wrong part of the castle and she needed to go back.

And then to climb.

* * *

There was a battle raging in front of her.

As soon as she heard the first sounds of the shouted curses and explosions she slowed down to cast a Disillusionment charm over herself, as strong as she could.

Fear was getting to her. Her legs felt as heavy as lead, but she didn't stop walking until she was standing at the end of the hallway. Just one more step and she would be inside the small hall in which her friends (half-family, really) were fighting Death Eaters.

The Death Eaters had their backs to her, but leaning onto a pillar behind them and completely exposed to her view was Draco Malfoy. As pale as a sheet, twitching every time a new spell was cast. As if he'd noticed that he was being watched and using the opportune moment when the battle shifted a bit away from him, he dashed toward the staircase that led to the Astronomy Tower. The same one for which she was aiming.

She knew she had no time to wait. She went around the fighters in a wide arc, keeping away from the spells they cast and started running in a semi-crouching position in order to lower the chances of being hit by a stray spell.

Once she finally made it to the entrance of the large, circular staircase, she heard no sound of Draco's footsteps. She groaned inwardly. Since she wasn't athletic like him, it would take her a much longer time to climb all the way up, and he already got a head start.

But after a while she finally climbed the last step of the staircase.

* * *

"I have to kill you! He will kill me if I don't! He will kill my _mother_ if I don't!"

As loud as the battle downstairs was, Hermione felt like it was Draco Malfoy's shrill shouting that hurt her ears.

Even more noticeable than his blond hair in the semi-darkness of the night were his shaking shoulders. He was crying hard and she guessed, from what she could see, that his wand was already a bit lower than it was before she arrived.

The thunder and lightning of the storm seemed to have passed by Hogwarts and were continuing further west, leaving behind only the rain, as if the weather took pity on the old castle and its inhabitants; deciding that Lord Voldemort's soldiers invasion was stressful enough for one night, and that lightning striking at everyone's heels would be overdoing it.

There was enough light on the tower's platform for Hermione to notice professor Dumbledore's alabaster white wand shine out in one of the far corners.

She felt a bit light headed when she realised what she was looking at. Malfoy to have disarmed professor Dumbledore? She could barely believe what she was seeing. It only began to make a little more sense when she took a better look at the professor.

He seemed to be able to stand only because the iron railing was supporting him. He was drenched through with the rain and his skin looking shockingly gray, as if he had just crawled from the grave after being dead for quite some time. Whatever he and Harry were doing must have taken a seriously wrong turn. The headmaster had been either poisoned or was finally succumbing to the effects of the curse which was inhibited for so long in his blackened hand.

And where was Harry anyway? Her mind felt only relief at the fact that he wasn't there with them, thinking that he must have landed elsewhere, so the possibility that he could be a few meters away from her, paralysed and invisible under his trusty, old cloak (as he indeed was) didn't even enter her mind.

The sounds of battle below could still be heard.

She slowly walked to the first column to her right and leaned against it, listening to the conversation before her. Draco told the story about repairing the Vanishing cabinet in the Room of Requirement (she was astonished at that part) and then the two of them were going back and forth about who was at whose mercy, which ended in Draco feeling like he was nothing but a scared little boy that might have been waving a tree branch in front of Dumbledore's face instead of a wand, even before he had disarmed him.

Just like Malfoy had been contemplating whether he should just toss his wand aside and crumble onto the floor in a fetal position, Hermione was having an internal battle of her own.

If she disarmed the blond now and the Order rushed in to the rescue, what would happen? What would happen if they rushed in and she _hadn't_ disarmed him?

What if she disarmed him and the Death Eaters broke through? The very thought of that almost turned the blood in her veins to ice.

In the end she decided to wait. There was still time.

Time for him to make the right choice.

It was obvious that Malfoy wouldn't hurt the headmaster, let alone kill him. It was also noticeable that he was buckling under the pressure and that his wand would soon be lowered completely. He was in a panic and had no idea what to do other than to hold his wand unconvincingly in the air while crying his heart out, out of fear for his mother's life.

The expression on Dumbledore's face was soft and grandfatherly but at the same time serious, certainly so that Draco wouldn't feel patronised as he was persuading him to abort his mission. Professor Dumbledore will soon fall to the ground, she thought, so weary and in pain he looked, though she could tell that he was doing his best to conceal it.

Though she had good intentions, Hermione ended up being wrong, because time ran out a lot faster than she thought it would. She noticed that the sounds of battle stopped only once they have been replaced by the sound of a group of people running up the stairway. Who was it going to be? She stopped breathing, her last inhale louder and deeper than it should have been, as if she was just about to jump into deep water and was prepared to sink to the bottom.

Much to the horror of everyone on the tower platform, it turned out to be the Death Eaters, led by none other than Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione closed her eyes as a single tear fell down her cheek.

They quickly spread themselves around Draco in a half circle. Every single one of them was glaring maniacally at Dumbledore who, unfortunately, as weak as he was and a minute away from falling to his knees, looked like a lamb about to get slaughtered. The remaining strength he had demonstrated for Malfoy in order to reassure him in his decision to accept his offer had dissipated, and all that was left was the sight of a dying and crippled old man.

"Good evening," he greeted the newcomers politely, but coolly. The foul group started jeering at him as a response.

 _No!_ She screamed inside her mind, begging for the strength to remain still. There was only one possible outcome of this situation unless she acted (but what was she to do?), and that is that she was about to see the headmaster murdered.

Bellatrix Lestrange approached Draco and put her hand on his shoulder, which had stopped shaking as a sheer instinctual response to the terror he felt when he realised who had broken through.

There would be no more stalling. This was the end.

"Now, Draco. Be a good boy and make us all proud," she said with great anticipation. There was a delighted gleam in her eyes that made her look even more beautiful than what was right, but it soon disappeared when the exact opposite of what she thought she would see happened.

Hermione almost gasped when Draco's hand moved, but luckily no actual sound came out of her mouth as he lowered his arm and let his wand drop onto the floor beside him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bellatrix hissed furiously when the thin wood struck the stone floor with a barely audible sound. She crouched and quickly picked up the wand from the floor and proceeded to try and open her nephews hand and stick the wand back in.

The rest of the Death Eater squad behind them started protesting (Greyback released a low growl), Yaxley actually taking a step forward whilst insisting that he would finish the job, to which Bellatrix almost screamed, because _her_ baby was taking the glory he deserved, reasoning to herself that his previous action was just a bit of cold feet. After all, she thought, he was still just an inexperienced boy, though not far from becoming a man.

Hermione saw the look on Draco's face as he turned to his aunt. Bella's lips parted slightly at the sight of it. It was the face of a man who made peace with his destiny. He was wearing the saddest smile his features were capable of producing. As hopeless as the situation was, Hermione's heart jumped a bit when she realised that Draco actually chose _the good_ _side_.

But it was too late.

Ignoring his aunt's nails that were digging themselves into the skin of his hand as she tried to make him hold the wand again, he turned to Dumbledore.

 _I won't kill you. I'll go with you if I have to,_ was what his eyes were silently telling his headmaster _._ His refusal to kill him wouldn't save the man's life, but at least Draco felt an immense weight lift itself off his shoulders. He knew in that very moment that whatever the consequences of his actions tonight would be, he made the right choice.

 _I'm sorry, mother_.

* * *

Bella knew they were low on time. Her beloved nephew seemed to have made his mind up and there would be no unmaking it tonight, so she would just have to work with what she's got. They wouldn't be where they were if not for Draco and she was sure her Lord would see it that way as well. She would personally kill Dumbledore without trying to get all the glory the way Yaxley would and Draco would still be the greatest hero of the entire war.

At the very moment Bellatrix reached her decision, as if on cue in a theatrical production, Severus Snape stepped onto the platform of the Astronomy tower with a billow of his cloak and his coal-black hair fanning out in the harsh, cold wind belonging to the Scottish storm. He grasped the situation easily – the group's general unease; Draco's limp, wandless hand; Bella's determined madness.

He was going to have to fulfil his vow after all.

"No," he drawled in the same silky but menacing tone of voice he used in the Potions classroom when a student had given him a wrong answer.

Hermione's heart jolted in her chest once again as the commanding voice of the graceful, black eyed man put a stop to Lestrange's movements.

In that instant, tears of despair turned into tears of joy because, for a delirious moment, she became certain that they were saved. He would know how to overturn this situation, she thought. He is a spy and that is why the enemy group isn't attacking him, certain of their safety by his side, but he was about to do something that would save both Draco and Dumbledore.

With another billow of his robe and his head held high, radiating absolute power and strength, he walked in a half-circle around Draco without looking at the boy and placed himself before him; as if to protect him from the sight of what was probably about to happen.

 _But you won't. Won't you? Professor?_ She thought, each word ringing more frantically in her mind as she called out to him mentally, as if there was even a slight possibility of him hearing her. Because still no miracle happened and one was absolutely necessary.

"Severus," said Dumbledore in a tone of voice so different from the one in which he spoke to Draco just minutes before. It was the same stern tone of voice her father used on her when she was a child and was just about to do something naughty (like steal another cookie from the jar), and that tone of voice kept her at bay not to do it.

"Please," he finished, a bit more softly.

Her gaze shifted from Dumbledore's face to his charred hand and suddenly, all of the pieces of the puzzle came together. Harry was internally screaming curses at the 'traitorous greasy git', but the brightest witch of her age had figured it out.

Dumbledore wasn't begging for life. He was begging for death.

Snape made movements of his wand in a pattern she recognised well, having seen it last year at the Ministry more than once, so she knew that what he was about to cast was the Killing curse.

In that moment she was nothing but a part of an audience, watching an act of a play.

 _Oh, fuck that,_ she thought, and sprang to action.

* * *

" _Protego Maxima!"_ Hermione shouted out and instantly a translucent, shimmering shield was cast over professor Dumbledore. It was the riskiest bet she had ever taken in her life, but the shock of her sudden appearance stopped professor Snape mid-spell and no more words came out of Snape's mouth as he recognised the voice of one of the worst thorns in his side.

With the casting of the spell her Disillusionment dissipated and she felt his eyes lock onto her. She didn't know it was possible for a man to look as furious as Severus Snape did in that moment.

Harry, who would have been crying tears of both rage and joy if the paralysing spell allowed it, wanted to jump out of his skin in order to be able to jump in front of her and protect her from the people to whom she had just exposed herself. Professor Dumbledore, on the other hand, stood quiet and motionless, before finally collapsing on the floor, unconscious. On the face of the Death Eaters, Malfoy included, was the expression of general panic. Were ten more people about to spring on them from the shadows, or was it just a lonely Mudblood acting all on her own?

She didn't give anyone a moment to gather their thoughts and act.

" _Expulso!"_ she shouted again and red light flashed in the night, erasing the foul green from sight. It was accompanied by a deafening bang and suddenly a large hole was blasted into the centre of the platform as if an explosive device had detonated. Stone and metal shrapnel flew in all directions.

Harry was _lucky_ tonight. His cloak wasn't blown away and it wasn't hit by any shard of metal large or sharp enough to cause mayor damage in the form of a tear. However, quite a few small stones hit him, but a few bruises that might manifest themselves tomorrow were the last on his list of worries.

Professor Dumbledore was untouched by any of the effects of the destructive spell, tucked away safely behind Hermione's shield.

Hermione remained standing in the same spot. She was only a spectator of the destruction and chaos she created, feeling only the gust wind blowing her hair around her face in the aftermath.

No matter how destructive one's spell is, magic would never turn on its master. Therefore Hermione felt no heat. Not even the smallest pieces of stone or metal made contact with her skin.

She just watched as best as she could; her mouth and eyes wide open.

In the darkness of the night, momentarily blinded from the light of the explosion and holding her breath like a small frightened child would, she didn't notice the large amount or smoke in the air; her eyes were too distracted by trying to catch up with which Death Eater was flying in which direction, until they started tearing quite a bit.

Naturally she couldn't care less about what happened to the blown-away Death Eaters, her adrenaline filled body leaving no room for mercy in her mind. _Sod them._ As long as they didn't start climbing back up the tower like the relentless cockroaches they were.

With professor Dumbledore relatively safe, in that moment she cared only about the fact that she had she blasted Draco Malfoy into the wall opposite her with such force that she was terrified that his neck had been broken. At least, that was the impression his crumpled, bleeding body was giving off.

A top priority was also the fact that professor Snape was nowhere to be seen, but that problem had solved itself mere seconds later when she heard grunting to her right, over the edge of the platform.

She turned to look for the source of the noise but in the place she expected to see a man (or at least half of one clinging to the edge of the tower), she only saw a black wand lying to her left. It was the same wand with which, for the past six years, she watched a certain professor wave Potions instructions on a blackboard in the dungeons deep inside Hogwarts.

She picked the wand up and tucked into her trouser pocket, just to be safe, and rushed to the edge to inspect the source of the noise.

"Oh my God!" she gasped when she saw professor Snape hanging in midair, barely holding onto a broken piece of the railing. That he was wandless was bad enough, but he had also been bleeding heavily from his temple, stopping his climb to look up at her with what one could almost call hate. He grabbed the hand which she extended after she anchored herself with her legs onto to nearest pillar.

She pulled his up with all the strength left in her lithe body, her arms screaming from the pain of dragging up the body of a man who in that moment felt like he weighed over a ton.

Once he was safely back on the platform beside to her, panting heavily, he told her something in his typical fashion that, if one was very optimistic, might be interpreted as Snape's way of saying thank you.

"I will break you for this, Miss Granger, I will _smash_ you," he seethed, pressing one hand hard on his injured head in order to stop the bleeding even a bit. The other he held on his stomach as he fought for breath, which he felt he would not be able to catch until tomorrow. He felt too old for this kind of business. But most of all, despite of being in a lot of pain - he felt angry.

They were sitting close to each other and their shoulders were lined up perfectly, but they were facing opposite directions. Panting even more heavily than the professor; with her head throbbing from the exertions of the evening and her blood pressure raging and causing a loud buzzing in her ears, Hermione had no way to notice the imminent danger she was in. She might have, if she hadn't let her guard down, but she did.

Her professor, though, who was furious with her for spoiling just about all of his and Dumbledore's plans, could.

"Bella!" he shouted just before a coughing fit overcame him.

The shout was certainly a warning, but the black haired woman who had just climbed back onto the platform had interpreted it quite differently from the bushy haired girl on the floor next to the Potions master.

Bellatrix thought he was warning _her._

She survived her flight only because she hit and broke the same kind of iron railing that Snape did and managed to hold on to it in the same fashion. She was as lucky as Snape was and even luckier than her nephew (whose survival remained uncertain), and Gibbon and Rowle who she saw hit the far-away ground as she was hanging in the air and gathering the strength to climb.

 _I should have believed my Lord and trusted his wisdom,_ she thought as her eyesdesperately searched the floor for a wand.

Even from a glance she could see that Snape was half-blind from the blood that coated his eyes, and yet he still called out to her. She felt honour-bound to protect him from the ugly muddy-blooded pest sitting not far from him, now that he had proved his worth to her.

Dumbledore, almost killed by his hand! His vow to her beautiful sister, almost fulfilled!

Not only had he redeemed himself in her eyes as a loyal subject of their Lord, but he had also proved his love for her nephew and that somewhat warmed that which remained of her heart.

Now she only needed to get her hands on a wand and finish tonight's work. It had already become far too messy, even for her own personal taste (with two of her comrades dead), but it was the hazard of the job.

Hermione, thanks to her professor's timely warning, had enough time on her hands to decide what to do with the maniacal witch in the torn up dress.

She felt the danger of the murderous intent directed her way. To disarm the madwoman when she found a wand would not be enough.

Bella was less than a meter away from the opening of the archway and had just grabbed Yaxley's wand from under a piece of broken stone.

Hermione knew she had to act once again. _Stupefy_ , she shouted angrily, passionately and viciously as if he was casting an Unforgivable.

Bellatrix Lestrange was so close to victory, but it was just not enough. On her face was the expression of shock as she felt herself lifted into the air by a Mudblood's spell for the second time that evening.

With a flash of red and blue, she was gone.

* * *

Severus Snape had a hard time believing his eyes.

Dumbledore's plan for his own death had obviously failed, thanks to the busybody who never seemed to know her place, but even that didn't seem to be enough for the brave little idiot. From what he could see when Granger was dragging him up, Rowle and Greyback were nowhere to be seen; Yaxley, barely visible from the rubble covering him, was lying on the floor not far from Draco and neither of them was giving away any signs of life. To add to that, he had just witnessed Bellatrix Lestrange being blown away from the Astronomy tower for the second time in five minutes.

With the current death toll, he thought, the Dark Mark had certainly not been cast in vain.

After she was finished with Bellatrix, Hermione ignored both Snape and Dumbledore as she rushed to Malfoy's side, under whom a large pool of blood had already formed. Shape got to his feet and lumbered towards them slowly, having injured his knee as well. He could hear Miss Granger's pained shouts of his godson's name as she was trying to determine whether she had killed him or not. Draco's neck seemed unbroken but his body still appeared heavily damaged. He needed to be taken to Madam Pomfrey as soon as possible.

Some protecting he did there.

Would the Vow to Narcissa take his life along with Draco's if he died tonight? He wandered at that as he stood behind Hermione with difficulty, barely able to adjust to his senses. His eyesight was clearing a bit but the centre of his balance was damaged. He also realised that he was partially deaf.

That was the reason he could not hear the rustling behind him.

Greyback, miraculously surviving the flight by landing on one of the tiny window rooftops and holding on with his giant claws, had finished his climb up the tower and took a step toward him. He was ready to take revenge for his fallen comrade, Bellatrix. Even though he couldn't see what had happened, his unparalleled werewolf senses allowed him to hear everything that was said and done at the top of the tower.

That is how he knew that Snape _let_ the girl kill Bellatrix by not bothering to interfere and he even heard his sigh of relief when the woman was blasted away.

When he saw Snape and the girl seemingly holding a wake over young Malfoy's body, rage boiled in his body even harder than it did before. _Fuck the girl,_ he thought, since she was an enemy and only doing what was expected of her, but Snape had _betrayed_ them. Bellatrix was right all along. He charged at Snape with the inhuman speed of an animal.

Hermione, whose spell of dizziness had passed away once her blood pressure settled itself, moved fast.

Snape saw her aim her wand towards him and thought for a moment that has she gone mad, but he then realised her eyes were looking at him something beyond him.

In the same moment that Greyback's right canine made contact and broke the skin of his neck, he saw the girl angle herself and shout out the same spell incantation she used to make Bellatrix Lestrange fly away.

Light flashed beside him and by the time he turned, Fenrir Greyback was out of sight.

Slowly he put his hand on his injured neck and then returned it in front of him for inspection. He was thanking Merlin that barely any blood was there. The fang didn't set itself into his flesh nowhere near deep enough so that he would have to fear the transmission of the monstrous disease, since the poison had not been injected into his bloodstream. He looked at Miss Granger and nodded his head very slowly; a voiceless form of saying _thank you_.

She did, after all, save his life.

His mind, though, was too shell-shocked from the head injury caused by the explosion to _truly_ comprehend what had been happening for the last few minutes, which is why it would take him a good night's sleep to be able to fully understand the consequences of Miss Grangers last action.

Almost as if he was in a daze, instead of thinking rationally and trying to get medical assistance for both his students and himself, he tried to imagine what the fiasco on the tower must have looked like to Hagrid or somebody who might have been watching from the ground.

The Flight of the Death Eaters.

That should be the name this battle gets, he thought as the beginning of a smile formed in the corner of his lips, right before his vision turned black and his body hit the ground, unconscious.

* * *

Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you like the more frequent 5k words updates (a rough size of all of the chapters as of yet) or if you would prefer longer (10k minimum, up to 15k) chapters that would take me a bit more time to write. I am still undecided as to how I should proceed with the updating schedule now that the 'intro arc' is finished.


	5. Chapter 5

I am so sorry for not updating sooner, I will try to do my best and never let such a long delay between updates happen ever again!

* * *

Severus Snape was trapped in a living nightmare.

The said nightmare started the moment he realised that he was just about to kill Albus on the Astronomy tower. It continued even more intensely as Miss Granger popped up from a pillar, much to everyone's surprise, and decided to kill off everyone but himself, Albus and Draco. In the meantime, the sun had risen and they had all been relocated to the Hospital Wing, but there just didn't seem to be an end to it.

The usual silence of the night hours in the Hospital Wing had been replaced with the sounds of healing spells Madame Pomfrey produced at regular intervals; the sound of potion's bottles being uncorked and their contents consumed became quite regular as well, along with the grunting and yelping of the wounded as their rapid, albeit painful recoveries were underway.

The air was saturated with the smell of disinfectants as cotton balls flew in the air and dabbed themselves on peoples' foreheads, arms and legs; necessary still in the world of magical medicine due to the ever-present microbes which Healers around the world were yet to establish how to magically contain from causing harm.

By the time the castle's clocks struck three in the morning, everyone had been more of less patched up, apart from Draco, who would not be waking up for at least a week.

Hermione had been ungrazed, for the obvious reason of her magic protecting her, but she had still been rather shell-shocked which earned her a hospital bed with the others.

Harry, who had been released from Dumbledore's spell only after the man had regained consciousness on the Astronomy Tower's broken floor, five minutes after the battle ended, seemed perfectly alright, apart from a few minor cuts and bruises. That fact surprised everyone about ten times more than his sudden materialisation on the platform did. He stayed the night in the Hospital Wing for the same reason as Hermione did.

Due to the fact that he was blasted face-first into a wall, Draco suffered severe head trauma which would have killed him in a matter of days if he only had Muggle medicine to treat him. Luckily for him, though, the gentle hands of Madam Pomfrey did their miracle work and he was laying in a magically induced coma that would ensure the stillness of body that was necessary for his recovery.

The Headmaster's medical state was another case entirely and by far the most complicated one to fix. Madame Pomfrey was a skilled Healer, but even _her_ heart started drumming in her ears as the diagnostic spells revealed all the chemicals that were eating Dumbledore's body away. If not for the potions that were at hand from Snape's private laboratory, she would have had to send him to St. Mungo's for treatment.

Though, Merlin knew, even _they_ might not have had every single potion that was necessary at hand, proving Dumbledore to be very lucky indeed, having acquired himself the most tenacious Potions Master in magical history to be a part of his staff.

Though the worst had passed during the night, Dumbledore was still in the process of healing, sitting as he was in the hospital bed next to Harry's, wrapped in a large quilted duvet, sipping on potion Number 13.

After Madam Pomfrey healed most of Snape's injuries (though the deep gash on his temple still needed work), with his help she spent ten minutes performing diagnostic spells in order to determine the exact amount of damage that was happening to Dumbledore's body. Once they had both agreed on the treatment, Snape _Accioed_ most of the potions that would be needed from the stores in his personal laboratory and started pouring them down the Headmaster's throat.

After potion Number 4 (a yellowish, unhealthy looking liquid brewed with the specific purpose of getting rid of excess copper in the bloodstream) Dumbledore was able to start drinking the potions himself. Currently he had been at it for good three hours and he would be completely rid of the toxins he ingested in the cave by the time he finished potion Number 17 (a mild and minty stomach ache reliever).

As for the Death Eaters, the only apparent survivor of the battle was Bellatrix Lestrange.

It had been determined that Yaxley met his end the moment his body made contact with the wall after Hermione's explosion, which broke his neck. The others have been found scattered around the base of the tower, but Bellatrix's body had been unaccounted for. As she was still holding Yaxley's wand when she had been thrown off, they guessed that she probably found a way to shield herself mid-flight before she hit the ground and ran away into the Forbidden forest, out of which she Apparated to safety.

It was also safe to assume that Snape was in the clear where Lord Voldemort was concerned. Through Bella's eyes he would get the ultimate proof of his right hand's loyalty (as it was planned all along) and the fact he had not been thrown in chains into Azkaban would be justified by the simple fact that Snape was, after all, a superspy.

During the time the injured had been treated in the Hospital Wing, the problem of the twin cabinet entrance had been fixed after Harry instructed professor McGonagall and the rest as to how to get inside the Room of Requirement. Kingsley and Tonks had been the ones to take care of the bodies of the dead and to make sure the Ministry had been filled in with most of the details.

Dawn was still far from breaking when the Daily Prophet's journalists, as well as a few others, had appeared at the castle's gates demanding the explanation for the Dark Mark that was found looming above Hogwarts the previous night, but they have been informed by a grouchy Flitwick that all official statements would be given in the morning.

The dawn broke; the morning came and started the day which most of the surviving participants of the Battle of the Astronomy Tower did not anticipate they would see.

Severus Snape lay in the hospital bed, wide awake and was processing all of the information concerning the battle itself and of the morning after.

He was quite certain that he wanted to leave the Hospital Wing more than he ever wanted anything else in his entire life.

He came to his senses less than five minutes after Madame Pomfrey got his hands on him after their arrival in her care. The time delay from when Miss Granger got Greyback off his neck in the last instant to when he realised what that action meant did nothing to lessen the blow (and the utter shock) that he now owed the pesky Gryffindor _a life debt_.

It wasn't the first life debt her ever owed, Merlin knew, but the fact that he owed it to _her_ filled him with such unease that made him feel as if he had been branded with a second Dark Mark, with this one being possibly even darker.

After knowing the girl for six years and knowing how her Gryffindor logic worked – he knew that if left with enough time on her hands to properly think it through she would ask for something grand, obscene and by any sane person's standards – far too much.

So he needed to _think_ about it. He had always been a man of action and fast solutions; other than in a cauldron, he never liked to let things simmer. He would have to talk to the girl very soon, before she concocted a request that would be four life debts worth.

But first, he needed to think.

His concentration had been significantly impaired as he was surrounded by the occupants of the other hospital beds whose primary concerns seemed to be to _talk all the bloody time_ and not allow a relaxing silence to fall even for a minute. The fact that the ward was swarmed by visitors at regular intervals didn't help either. He liked Molly, but when she appeared before them for the second time that morning 'just to check in on them again', his patience was starting to wear thin.

The most annoying visitor by far, who seemingly decided to make himself a permanent one as he lounged on the bed opposite his, was the youngest Weasley boy. He was radiating stubborn deviance as Severus detected the third glare the boy was sending his way, though he was ignoring it with practiced ease.

In the normal circumstances such cheek would have earned the boy quite a laborious detention, but Snape managed to admit to himself that even he himself had been rather desensitised by the events of last night, so he couldn't really blame the boy for temporarily losing the sense of propriety and of their difference in rank.

But still, if the boy was waiting for an apology for being stunned unconscious in front of the door to his chambers, Snape thought, he had another thing coming.

Snape decided to make a show of staring out of the window above Ron's head rather pointedly, since all three members of the Golden Trio were trying to catch his glance, each for their own different reasons. He did not mind the accusations and doubts in the eyes of Potter and Weasley as much as he was determined to avoid Miss Granger's eager glance. Even with his peripheral vision he was able to see that her eyes were burning with _the question._

The view from the window before him, with which he was distracting himself, was that of a beautiful day.

The Quidditch pitch was visible in the distance; its tiny, colourful flags were dancing in the gentle breeze. The soil of the castle grounds was soaked from the rainfall and walking outside without slipping in the mud was probably impossible, but the sun shone as it only does after a storm. Every leaf and flower was still glistening with raindrops and Severus could swear that he still detected a whiff of ozone coming through the open window.

He was faintly aware of Madam Pomfrey coming in and telling them something, but it was Dumbledore's voice that broke him out of the peaceful spell he managed to cast onto himself and he turned to the crippled man, feeling that he was going to be addressed.

"Now that Madam Pomfrey has forbidden any more visitors to come in so that we may rest," Dumbledore started in a slightly wheezy voice and coughed gently before continuing, "perhaps we could use this valuable time to do the exact opposite," he finished, the trademark twinkle visible in his eye.

At this Snape raised his eyebrow, bemused. He was surrounded by four hive-minded Gryffindors; Merlin only knew what their leader was up to now. Breaking out of the Hospital Wing and charging at Malfoy Manor?

"I only meant that we could fill in each other's blanks, so to speak," Dumbledore responded to the bewildered children before him and smiled his most grandfatherly smile at Snape, who in turn was trying to restrain himself from throwing the cup of black tea he was holding straight at the man's face. Damn the man, Snape thought.

They were going to have to talk about it _now,_ and in front of the children. Snape hoped against hope all throughout the morning that Dumbledore would allow waiting for them to be alone, but now it became apparent that he would probably have to share with the brats the things only Dumbledore was privy to and, just for a brief moment, he hated the man for it.

There were no blanks that needed to be filled, as far as he was concerned.

If the children really were the soldiers of Dumbledore's 'army' (as the dunderheads even put into writing), then they could at least be trusting enough in the man's judgement and not need every detail explained to them.

Those were not the only reasons for his discontent, though.

The fact was that he actually liked playing the role of the antagonist. He was used to it after so many years, and people like what they are used to. He had absolutely no desire to be the hero, as he was certain the children would come to look at him if they knew the whole story.

If last night it had all gone the way it was supposed to, Snape knew that he would have become a greater villain in their eyes than the Dark Lord. But that is precisely what would have carried the war. If he had killed Dumbledore he would have earned the Dark Lords absolute trust and he would have become the key piece in securing the victory for the Light. After their side was victorious (and himself – most certainly dead) he would have been uncloaked, unmasked and called a hero.

But that would have been posthumous. And he could live with that.

But having Potter find out the real motives behind his actions - the red strands of hair flowing on his shoulder and through his fingers when he was a stupid young boy, and her scent that lingered in his memory, even though she died so long ago...

If Dumbledore revealed to the boy (as he was undoubtedly itching to) that Snape had sworn himself to protecting him and defeating the Dark Lord after Lilly died... Snape couldn't bear the thought of it.

If it was to be talked about, the story would have to be watered down significantly, he decided. Or else Unforgivables would be thrown around. He glared at Dumbledore fervently in order to send him the message.

Admittedly, the children kept quiet about the events of last night, not pouncing on him and Dumbledore with a hundred questions per minute as he had expected they would, but the tension in the room was so thick it could have been cut with a knife.

After Dumbledore made his suggestion, Snape could almost feel their communal tension brake once they realised that they were finally going to _talk about it._ Gryffindors apparently found that babbling away was the universal cure for everything, much like Muggle housewives swore by apple cider vinegar.

"Mister Malfoy will have to wait for his turn for quite some time, unfortunately," Dumbledore said as he looked at the angelic looking boy (when asleep and unable to make his usual grimaces, the boy really did look so), "but until then, Mister Weasley, perhaps you could begin by telling us your story in short?" he said as he turned to the redhead.

Ron did not expect himself to be addressed, so he instantly turned beet red in the cheeks.

"Well," Ron started as he was searching for words. His oratory skills had always been rather weak and he found this to be the worst possible time to practice them.

"Why don't you tell us how you knew to raise the alarm?" the Headmaster urged him on gently, smiling.

Though he was sincerely trying to help, he was only making Ron feel even more awkward. Ron, Hermione and Harry have all seen and experienced strange things in their lifetime, but the sight of professor Dumbledore in the hospital bed with them, covered with a quilted blanket and with his fluffy slippers next to the bed was pretty overwhelming. Always the one to adjust to such strange occasions with the most difficulty, Ron began even more timidly that he would on a normal occasion.

"Well, Sir, you know of the Marauder's Map," Ron started, feeling very self-conscious. Dumbledore nodded in agreement. "When Harry came to fetch the Invisibility cloak and drink the Felix Felicis..." Ron continued, but was immediately stopped by the sound of professor Snape choking on a sip of tea.

The coal-black eyes of the Potions Master, shrouded with disbelief, were instantly trying to bore a hole into The Boy Who Lived. _What the actual fuck?_

"Oh, my," Dumbledore interjected before Snape got the chance for a snarky question, "it would seem that the very beginning provided us with a thrilling mystery. It is, naturally, a personal affair, but perhaps you would be kind enough to tell professor Snape and me how such a rare potion came into your possession, Mister Potter?"

Dumbledore was fully well aware of how and why Harry got the precious potion, but Severus' curiosity needed to be sated now that the matter floated up to the surface.

"Professor Slughorn gave it to me as a gift when term began," Harry responded immediately in a flat tone of voice, not feeling the need to add anything to it. Snape did not need to know, or rather, did not deserve to hear the old professor's praise for Lilly Evans. It was far too intimate for Harry to divulge any more details.

That did answer Snape's _how,_ but not his _why_ , yet he immediately decided to let it go; he was so very much used to Potter getting special treatment from most of the school faculty members, he was surprised at himself for not putting the two and two together.

Though, the fact that he found himself surprised that it wasn't actually Granger's handiwork (as was his first and only thought) left a bitter taste, since it was a revelation for him that he actually found her capable of brewing it. If Hermione could have known what he was thinking at that moment, she would have found it to be the greatest compliment she had ever received.

Ron finished his report after the interruption, making sure to sound extra bitter when he got to the part of being stunned unconscious onto the cold marble floor of the Hogwarts' dungeons.

Snape pretended not to notice the hostility directed his way.

"Harry, our excursion cannot be talked about in here..." Dumbledore started, turning to the boy and annoying Snape with the statement so much that a vein was not far from popping up on his forehead. Why not, he wondered? Had it something to do with the blasted hand that was killing him? The hand he was certain he would know how to heal if he was only told the nature of the curse which was inflicted on it (which Potter obviously knew)?

"You mean in front of me," Snape snapped bitterly.

"...so perhaps Miss Granger could tell us her account of the events," Dumbledore said, ignoring the man and turning to the girl.

They had all noticed that Hermione had been uncharacteristically aloof all throughout the morning, though only Snape knew the real reason behind it. At least, he was fairly certain that she was too preoccupied with wondering at the fact that she had been given a gift from the heavens in the form of a figurative leash and collar around the Potion Masters neck, so she couldn't be bothered with even pretending to be focused on her surroundings.

"I think that the burning questions are how you found yourself to be on the Astronomy Tower in the first place and why you chose to act as you did," Dumbledore urged her on, genuinely curious for the tale.

Snape had been only partially correct about what was going on in Hermione's head. True, she had been thinking about the life debt and the payment she would ask from him, but she was mostly preoccupied with the fact that the events of last night came as a confirmation that professor Dumbledore was at death's door. The thought shook her at her very core. The War needed him. They needed him. _Harry_ needed him.

So she couldn't let him die.

Though, if professor Snape had been unsuccessful in healing him so far... what was she to do?

Hermione raised her large, doe eyes at the Headmaster and bit her inner lip, hesitating to speak.

She understood that her actions were unexpected at the time and that her appearance was quite the mystery, but she really wasn't in the mood for going over how she got to the tower or why she even knew how to get there.

She was fairly certain that the moment she would mention going for a walk after curfew professor Snape would snap at her and take twenty points from Gryffindor. Professor Dumbledore would most likely compliment her for being a clever girl after she would tell how she immediately deduced that the green flash was the casting of the Dark Mark and would give her at least ten of the previously taken points back.

But she felt too agitated to deal with such empty topics. Not now when they were finally talking about the important stuff, so she might as well cut to the chase and ask about what was really bothering her.

"Sir," she started very hesitantly, quietly, sounding almost too afraid to ask. "Sir, you're dying. Aren't you?"

It ended up coming out of her mouth more as a statement than as a question.

Where most men would have hung their head, if even a little, Dumbledore still managed to keep his head high and give her a small smile. Though, the twinkle in the corner of his eye was suddenly missing.

"I am, Miss Granger," he admitted flatly and raised his charred hand as if to present them with the evidence of the cause, "though not from old age."

It was Hermione's turn to fight hanging her head on her chest.

To Snape neither the question nor the answer came as a surprise. Ron and Harry, on the other hand, sat gawking at Dumbledore's hand; their thought processes were stuck at the shock that _it was actually that bad_.

"Perhaps you could tell us how you came to that conclusion?" he asked her, but she knew that he knew everything already and what he really wanted was for Harry to be finally filled in. She obliged, not having a choice, but her mind was still split in two. One part of her was filled with sadness that professor Dumbledore was almost gone, but the other part was filled with sheer determination that she was going to save him. Or at least, that she was going to help professor Snape save him.

The key element that professor Snape was missing in trying to heal the Headmaster was that he didn't know about the Horcruxes; she felt certain about that. And he couldn't be told by Dumbledore because there was the risk of Voldemort finding out that they knew about his dirty secret. So how could she go around that? What kind of magic would help her bind the secret to professor Snape so that he could be safely told without the risk of anyone else ever finding out?

That was her primary concern.

But at the moment, Dumbledore wanted her to tell a story, and so she did.

They listened to her in silence. Snape was leaning his head against the headboard and staring at the ceiling, not wanting to hear how it 'suddenly became obvious' to her that Dumbledore already had one foot in the grave and that the two of them must have made a deal to turn a tactical loss into a strategic victory. For one thing, he didn't think himself and Albus to be obvious. No one else present at the Tower thought that there might be some plot behind what was happening right in front of their eyes.

And yet the girl had still read right through them.

As they were listening to Hermione's explanation, Harry and Ron had wheels turning behind their eyes. Snape was keeping an eye on the boy's reaction with his peripheral vision.

Harry's face changed slowly from disbelief to astonishment as he realised that Snape genuinely wasn't the bad guy.

Snape felt his stomach turn a bit when he saw the first hint of respect for him show itself in the boy's eyes. It showed itself begrudgingly, true, but it was nevertheless there.

As explanations were being made and Dumbledore was filling the last of the gaps, much to Snape's surprise, the man managed to somehow keep himself from bursting out with the story of Snape's gallantry, bravery and regret, so there was no mention of Lilly or any of the things Snape would find _too_ uncomfortable to talk about in front of the children.

Snape managed to come through all the storytelling and questions with a more or less sombre demeanour, though only at one point he couldn't quite contain his irritation as Miss Granger was telling her part.

When Hermione got to the part where she was describing how she couldn't stay put once she realised how things really were between Snape and Dumbledore and said that she decided that she had to act - he snapped at her rather harshly, telling her that she was the brightest idiot of her age, twisting the title she was known for into an insult. Dumbledore started scolding him immediately, but Snape noticed a strange thing as he was listening to the old man chastising him.

For the first time in their whole acquaintance, his short temper and harsh words didn't make the girl feel bitter; instead his reaction drew out a small, reluctant smile out of her.

Miss Granger seemed to have been developing a thicker skin, he noticed.

And he wasn't sure he liked it.

* * *

As he knew she would, she came to him the very evening Madame Pomfrey discharged them.

He stood in the middle of the Potions classroom, waving his wand lazily and organising the room when he felt her disturb the wards he set in the hallway.

It was the evening, but the room hadn't been artificially lit yet; instead it was basking in the last of the orange light of the sunset. The faint smell of Valerian root still lingered in the air, left behind by the Drought of Living Death; the last potion of the day which the students have been making under Slughorn's stand-in supervision while Snape was still in the hospital bed seething with boredom and fury which the confinement brought him.

He was more than ready for Miss Granger's arrival; having already decided on what was the biggest (and least inconvenient) sacrifice he was willing to make to disperse the magic that currently bound them together. He contemplated long and hard as to what he might offer the girl before she even presented her own idea (he was adamant on not letting it get to that) and so he settled on offering her his services as a Potions Master; naturally, free of charge.

He decided that offering to provide her with any ingredient or potion that she might desire would be more than enough as payment.

He was even willing to brew Liquid Luck for her, if that was her wish.

Though the very idea of making her such an offer pained him, he was satisfied with his solution once he felt the nudge of the magic in his mind giving him its approval; it meant that such a gesture was _grand_ enough (as he thought with disgust) to repay the life debt he owed.

And it just happened to be the least inconvenient one for him.

Knowing the girl's character fairly well, he was certain that she wouldn't actually come to make demands out of him tonight; instead he felt certain that she would come to discuss what the most painless solution to their mutual problem would be.

For it was a problem.

The magic behind a life debt manifested itself as an ever-present nagging in the back of the affected persons mind. It was somewhat like a heavy-duty version of the feeling that you are meeting someone in town in two days and that you should not forget it.

He knew very well that Miss Granger was feeling the same way and he imagined her relieved and grateful once she heard his suggestion. He was certain that she would accept. That is the reason he felt no worry at all. He was only impatient to get the nasty business over with.

On the table to his left were a few containers of standard potions ingredients meant for student use, currently refilling themselves from the containers from the storage. He was glad that Miss Granger caught him in the moment when he was actually busy, so that she wouldn't get the idea that he was waiting for her, which he wasn't.

The containers were simply in dire need of refilling.

The fact that classes were finished for the year and that Hogwarts Express was leaving in two days and that the job could wait for the entire summer to pass were just nitpicky details.

"Come in," he said to her in an impatient tone of voice that suggested annoyance with her as he worked up a frown on his face. There wasn't anything actually annoying him at the moment; he was simply setting up the usual mood reserved for dealing with students in order to establish an air of authority. It was a fool-proof method for getting the interaction over with quickly. The more nervous they were, the faster they wanted to get away from him.

The girl greeted him and moved behind him as he buried his nose in a ledger and started analysing the lists of ingredients, making sure everything was balanced and also making mental notes as to what ingredients the storage was running low on and would need to be restocked. He was ignoring the girl behind him completely, not caring a bit about the fact that he was being very rude. He was waiting for the sound of nervous fidgeting before he would turn around to address her.

Except, for some reason, Miss Granger seemed to be as still as a marble statue judging from the fact that she made absolutely no sound; in fact, she was so silent that he could have sworn that the girl was even holding her breath. How bloody odd, he thought, now actually getting annoyed. _Well then_ , he reasoned with himself as he sighed, it can't work every single time.

He turned around on his heel and took a good look at the girl. She didn't seem to notice.

She was breathing, sure, but she was not paying the slightest attention to him.

Hell, she might have even forgotten where she was and whom she was with, judging by the look on her face. He certainly failed to put her on edge as he usually did. She seemed calm and aloof; she was sitting on a stool (she must have being moving as silent as a cat, for he certainly did not hear her sit herself on it) and she was staring at the floor with a blank expression on her face.

As she was exhibiting such uncharacteristic behaviour, the only one being put on edge at that moment was _himself_ , so he decided to put the end to the charade.

He cleared his throat, loudly.

No reaction.

"Miss Granger," he barked suddenly, the sound of his voice finally jerking her away from the depths of her thoughts and back to the classroom.

Her eyes immediately locked onto his with a deer in headlights expression. His patience with her odd behaviour was steadily wearing thin; he was not far from barking at her to tell him what was wrong with her. The girl that usually displayed the focus that almost matched his own at the moment seemed to be as far away as Lovegood usually was.

"Sorry, professor," she said sheepishly, though not as sheepishly as he would have liked.

"We both know what you have come here to discuss," he stated and started pacing in front of her. His arms were crossed behind his back, as was his habit, and the fabric of his robes rustled in its usual manner.

At his statement she shifted from one leg to the other and bit her lip. He read her body language as a sign of disagreement, but decided not to pursue it, not making anything of it.

"I believe that I have already worked out a solution that would prove most satisfactory to both of us," he drawled languidly, sounding as sure of himself as he always did; his impatience with her was not reflected in the tone of his voice.

He was just about to deliver the short speech he had prepared, when she decided it was time to interrupt him.

She could tell that professor Snape was working himself up to persuade her to accept whatever his solution was, but she didn't even want to hear him present his idea. She felt very stupid for letting herself get into a daze and she could imagine the things he was thinking about her at the moment; it was probably somewhere in the lines of 'as scatterbrained as Longbottom', and her cheeks coloured a little.

It's just that she couldn't help getting lost in her thoughts, knowing how changed her life was probably going to be in the near future.

"I came to talk to you about the nature of professor Dumbledore's injury and about the treatments you have tried so far," she said much more forcefully than she intended and bit her lip again, her words escaping her mouth in a rush and her face immediately acquiring a guilty look because of her rudeness.

He narrowed his eyes as he stopped his pacing and moved to stand directly in front of her, less than a meter away. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable, as was his intention.

With how intimidating the man was, she felt fairly certain that he would be able to get the job on any interrogation squad in the world he chose if he ever got bored of being a Potions Master. He was so much taller than her that he towered over her, and she had to tilt her head quite far in order for her eyes to be able to meet his.

"Is that what you wish to request from me as payment for the debt I owe you? To extract form me all the secrets which you wish to know?" he asked quietly.

There was a hint of anger present in his voice. He was trying to hide it, since he didn't hiss or seethe the words in his usual manner when he was particularly displeased, but she noticed it anyway.

She was more than sensible enough to be just a little afraid of him in that moment.

He was the kind of man that always radiated power, no matter what the circumstances. He might not have necessarily been a Dark wizard, but he was always surrounded by a dark cloud of magic that at times seemed like it might be electric in nature. When he found her and the boys with Sirius and professor Lupin in the Shrieking shack years ago, he was so angry and possessed with malicious greed for vengeance against his old foe that Hermione remembered him more as a Dementor than as a man; that impression remaining in the girl even when his broad back was in front of her to shield her from the werewolf.

She might have caught him in a bath with a shower cap on, covered with pink foam and with charmed rubber ducklings swimming around him – even then she had no doubt that there would be something quite deadly about the man.

Extracting secrets, he said. That must have been exactly what he had been afraid of, she realised, even though she had no intention of forcing him to unleash them. She wanted information, it was true, but only what he was willing to give. Surely he would realise that, as well as how important it all is to her once he hears her out, she tried to reassure herself.

"No, Sir, in fact..." she tried again, looking for the right way to phrase it so that he doesn't curse her into oblivion. She was getting more nervous by the minute and the air in the room suddenly became too hot for her; soon enough and she would start to perspire. In addition to that, the scent of the herbs became overpowering, so she was starting to feel a bit nauseous as well.

Her blood pressure was dropping due to the stress. She wanted this to be over soon. Otherwise she would slump to the floor, unconscious, and even the thought of that doing that in front of him was embarrassing enough.

"I believe that the situation that has developed between us can be used in our favour," she said and saw him raise an eyebrow as his face acquired a sceptical look.

"Or, to be more exact, in professor Dumbledore's favour," she added, trying to sound as confident as she could, even though he was looking at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head.

He didn't comment on her statement, choosing instead to wait to see where she was going with this.

"I believe I know what you have been doing wrong," she said.

It was the wrong thing to say apparently, because the expression on his face now turned to livid.

"That is, I am fairly certain that I know why you haven't been able to heal him," she added meekly.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in an effort not to lose his temper in front of the girl. Though it was true that over the years they have seen each other in rather unusual states and situations, he had no desire to add another incident to that list.

As she watched him trying to keep his cool, a thought flashed through Hermione's mind that it really was the time to light the candles because the room was becoming ominously dark. She would have pointed that out to him, if only he didn't look as if he was contemplating where to hide her dead body.

He looked as if he needed a shot of very strong alcohol, but he settled for a deep breath of air; the next best thing available.

"Miss Granger," he started slowly, grinding the syllables of her name through his teeth, "if you truly are privy to such _delicate_ information," he continued, emphasising the word, though he truly meant _vital_ , "I don't see why you have ever hesitated to share such information with me, since it is in everyone's best interest for me to know?" he asked.

Hermione cast her eyes back on the floor in order to avoid his burning gaze. He truly was livid, even though it wasn't actively showing. And she couldn't blame him.

It was her turn to close her eyes and take a deep breath.

"I cannot share this information with you for the same reason as, I believe, professor Dumbledore could never tell you," she said and finally locked her eyes with his, hoping that he would understand what was hidden between the lines of her words.

He understood her meaning, naturally. Of course it had to do with the Dark Lord not finding out; he was no fool or green boy not to know that, but even if _she_ knew what he wasn't supposed to find out, there was no helping it. He could _never_ be told. Because Albus wouldn't allow it, no matter what she came up with.

"But I believe I have figured out a way around that. And that is where the payment of the life debt will come in," she added.

Ah.

There.

That explains her motivations and such strange, fidgety behaviour, he thought.

He also thought her a fool, because whatever she was planning to do would end in failure, he felt more than certain. It wasn't his lack of faith in her intelligence or skill that made him believe that, it was just that he knew that there was no possible way to go around the risk of the Dark Lord digging too deep into his mind one day. If there was, Albus would have figured it out already.

He took a good look at her face.

She looked as uncomfortable as he ever saw her, but he also saw in her eyes the trademark Gryffindor determination and foolhardy bravado; even though there was nothing foolhardy about Miss Granger. It was very prominent that she had the bit between her teeth and he knew that it meant that she was going to see her mission (whatever it was) through, no matter how much resistance he put up (if he chose to).

In fact, no matter what she said about not compelling him to talk to her about the things she wished to know, he knew that he was already at her mercy, even if she wasn't aware of the fact. It's just how the magic behind a life debt worked. It's just that he felt in his bones that _this,_ whatever it was, was already the first instalment of the payment for the life she saved.

"Sir..." she tried again and fought for the right words, "I need to make sure I won't be making a mistake. I need to know that my hypothesis is right, or else the consequences might be disastrous. It will all be for nothing. That is why I _need_ to know what you have tried so far."

"What will be for nothing?" he asked, sounding unhappily resigned to his fate. Dread must have filled him, she thought, as he looked more and more defeated by the minute.

And she thought quite right.

Snape felt almost silly for thinking that she would let him manage the situation his way and that he would be out of it by the time the sun went underneath the horizon.

The thing was, he made the mistake of treating her as just an ordinary student and expected a request (if she made one) that befitted one, when in fact, in the situation they have found themselves in, they were almost equals. It shouldn't have come to him a surprise that she would try to use the circumstances for a greater good and not just her own benefit. Though it was unofficial, she was practically a member of the Order, no matter what Molly harped about them being innocent children.

Even through the daze in which she walked into the classroom he could see a shadow of the wheels that were turning behind her doe eyes, but only now did he became acutely aware of the fact that she had turned their situation into some kind of a two-man _mission_ which he was a part of, but to which the details he was not going to be privy to for at least a while, or so it seemed.

"Please. Tell me about the potions and treatments you have tried so far," she tried one more time.

And so he told her, much to her surprise and relief. He knew that there was no point in fighting it. Whether he liked it or not, the choice for him not to obey her request was not presented to him. The magic was weaving its treads around them and this was just the first step to the completion of the deed of repayment.

Though it felt...heavy, he thought, for a lack of a better word.

For some reason Snape felt that it was heavier even than the Unbreakable vow he made to Narcissa.

He couldn't deny to himself that he had the feeling that something quite large was brewing and that whatever Miss Granger would try to do would probably be life changing for both of them. He accounted it to the possibility of saving Albus' life, which was the only possible result of her plan that could resonate through the magic so much.

Though, even such foreshadowing wasn't enough to awaken even a sliver of optimism inside him.

She stayed with him in the classroom for a little over half an hour after he accepted her request. He lit the candles on the walls and started telling her about the potions he was brewing for Albus in front of the blackboard as if he was holding a regular lecture to a class. She listened patiently and the only interruptions she made were to ask him to go into a bit more detail about this or that potion ingredient, or the method he was using to brew a specific potion.

He saw no real point in what he was doing (after all, he was the experienced Potions Master and she was just a student; no matter how gifted she was, she still lacked the ability to surpass him in the field of Potions making) until he noticed a very peculiar change in her facial expression.

Her eyes were gradually acquiring an unusual gleam and he couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the closest way he got to describe the change in her was that she was becoming _elated_.

The girl was obviously doing her best to keep herself appearing serious and unfazed at all times, as if she really was listening to just another Potions lecture, but he noticed that her mood was changing the further he went into describing the potions. After the told her about the ingredients and the method he used for brewing the fifth one, he realised that she seemed to have heard just about all she had wished to know and remained listening to him describe the preparation of the last two potions out of sheer politeness.

The fact that she might have made a favourable conclusion and that she really might have an idea on the improvement of the treatments certainly made him curious and he was now even more annoyed than before with the fact that she couldn't share the information with him.

Night fell and the shroud of darkness covered the castle grounds entirely by the time she left him to the silence of the classroom and retreated back to Gryffindor tower.

Before she left she explained to him that she would contact him as soon as she combined all the information she just got out of him with her own research - meaning that even weeks might pass by before he was told what was the exact kind of noose she would be putting around his neck and just what kind of lionhearted lunacy he would be forced to commit in order to find a loophole that could be used for him to learn the nature of Dumbledore's curse.

 _If_ that even turned out to be possible.

He waved his wand in order to make the cabinet doors shut themselves and the candles to blow themselves out. He went out of the classroom through the hidden corridor that adjoined the classroom to his private quarters, pulling his fingers through his hair in a vain effort to calm himself as he walked.

Long, silky strands of black hair fell back onto his temples, framing his face once again. He tried to tell himself that he wasbeing unreasonably worried about what Miss Granger had set in store for him. He tried to convince himself that he was probably causing himself more stress with just worrying about it, that her actual request would when she finally makes it.

After all, he concluded with a heavy heart, there was only _so much_ she could ask for.


	6. Chapter 6

Severus Snape was having a good day.

The rain was pouring and lightning hit the castle grounds in regular intervals, but the rowdy Scottish weather had little to no effect on his good mood. He had a day of hard work behind him, but today he felt more productive (and thus more satisfied with himself) than he had in a whole week. The major project of replanting some areas of the greenhouses with Pomona, as well as adding in a few newer, more exotic species than were usually seen there, went exceedingly well. Not many people were aware of the fact that each year during the summer Severus gives aid to the Herbology professor, providing oversight and giving advice on the care of certain plants that he has to heavily rely on from her greenhouses.

It took him most of the day to help a group of house-elves organise the saplings in front of the greenhouses that somehow got mixed up in transport from South America, and he spent the rest of the daylight hours teaching the elves the proper methods of planting the man-eating, poison-spewing plants.

But he didn't mind the work, not a bit.

Potions and Herbology – they were very similar disciplines that both required physical work and getting one's hands dirty, which suited him. One couldn't heavily rely on magic, and it took great skill and patience to practice both, so Severus found contentment in both of them.

There was also something to be said about teaching the free house-elves of Hogwarts.

He found it to be _much_ more gratifying work then teaching the dunderheads he had to deal with for most of the year. They were patient with his explanations (no frantic hand waving like in some especially annoying students) and were always happy and thankful to learn something new. One has to explain or show something to a house-elf only once and they had already learnt it by heart; because of that Severus always found that the Wizarding world was indeed very lucky that the elves never harboured any ambitions to overthrow them. If it ever came to that, though, he would be willing to put money on the house-elves managing to do in one year what the Dark Lord was only _trying_ to do in decades.

The storm caught them all as abruptly as a storm is able to catch one, but before they all hurriedly Apparated away, the elves fetched Severus an umbrella when the sky decided to open itself up above them and spew its contents on their heads. It was not a very necessary gesture, since he was just about to charm a shield from the rain for all of them, but he appreciated it.

If only the students were more like that. He would be less bitter and like his job a lot more if they were, he thought.

He was lounging in his living room on a sofa located beneath a large window that overlooked the Great Lake. The room was dimly lit as the summer sun hidden in the thunderclouds was in the process of setting. A forgotten book was in his hand. He was staring blankly at the raindrops that were hitting the glass, switching his attention occasionally to the view from the window. The surface of the lake was disturbed by the high winds and he could see lightning in the distance, but the storm had almost passed Hogwarts completely.

He felt tired, but in a good way, and he hoped that doing nothing but staring at nature would take away some exhaustion. He was at peace with himself for most of the day because he was too busy to think of anything other than the tasks he had at hand, but now his thoughts were drifting back to Albus and his condition, as they most often did in the last few months, slowly filling him with unease.

There were a few reasons that he was feeling as he was.

The first one was the fact that he wasn't the murderer of Albus Dumbledore; the second one was the fact that he _should have been_ the murderer of Albus Dumbledore; the third one was the fact that, no matter how hard he tried, he still wasn't able to become the saviour of Albus Dumbledore.

He felt selfish from time to time and allowed himself to be grateful that Granger did what she did (it's not like he _wanted_ to kill Albus), but reason itself told him that it would have been much better if she hadn't. Things would be progressing much faster if she hadn't. If things progressed like he and Albus planned, he would already have been one foot in the grave, much like Albus was now, but at least he wouldn't have been caught in the limbo in which he was now. Between trying to concoct an adequate potion for Albus (and miserably failing with every try) and enduring the Dark Lord's silent rage caused by the fact that he was still forced to be in hiding and working from the shadows instead of taking over the Ministry or something of the sort, he found very little time to sleep.

Or eat.

Or pretty much anything other than helping with the replanting of the greenhouses, and it seemed it was all going to be for nothing. Albus was still most likely to die a very painful death in a matter of months due to his cursed hand and then the Dark Lord would eventually emerge from the shadows.

Thus Miss Granger only delayed the inevitable.

"Severus?" an inquiring voice from the fireplace suddenly disturbed the silence of the room. It belonged to Dumbledore, who was having a far worse day than Snape was. He woke up just before the break of dawn feeling as if he hadn't slept at all, and spent most of his day trying his best to work in his office, even just for a little, while simultaneously trying to fight off nausea and losing consciousness. Then, as if to top it all off, little less then fifteen minutes ago he got into a fight in his office with a very dishevelled owl that seemed to be far too busy trying to dry and heat itself to remember her duty of lifting her little leg and handing over the letter which she was carrying for him.

Instead she just pecked at the poor man and refused to release the letter until he finally snatched it away once she turned the other side of her body to the fireplace in order to dry her feathers.

"Yes, Albus?" Snape answered, tossing his book to the other side of the sofa and immediately snapping his fingers in order to call Libby to his room. The little house-elf appeared in front of him for little less than the duration of a blink of an eye before immediately Dissaparating. Upon her arrival she noticed the headmaster's head in the fireplace and knew that her former Master called for her to fetch the tea and biscuits, so she didn't bother with staying to wait for the request and was in the kitchens before Snape even got an opportunity to open his mouth.

The headmaster visited her former Master quite often so she knew the drill by heart.

Such behaviour from her always made Snape click his tongue involuntarily, but that is how Libby always was; it was his own damned fault for not getting used to it by now. Though, one day he would wish for something other than the usual black tea he drank and the gingersnap biscuits he always had along with it, and that would be the day Libby would feel sorry for her cheek. Not that he would ever dream of administrating punishment; only that it would finally be _her_ time to click her tongue in annoyance when he one day called her back to get him black coffee and a croissant.

"May I come through, please?" Dumbledore inquired, and even through the fireplace which muffled voices so very much one could hear that the man sounded sickly. They were lucky that his condition could outwardly still pass for a very nasty cold and they could only hope that the situation would remain the same until the opening feast in September when a speech would have to be made. It would be very bad news for all of them if the Slytherin children noticed that something more serious was going on with the headmaster and reported it to their parents. A rumour that Dumbledore was at his deathbed would have the potential of causing almost as much harm as Dumbledore's actual death would.

"You may," Snape answered.

Dumbledore came through the fireplace and into Snape's living room already dressed for bed and looking overtired. He was wearing a grey sleeping robe and a matching sleeping hat. Snape found it to be the worst possible choice of colour for him, since it went perfectly along with the ashy hue his skin started displaying a couple weeks ago. A Muggle would assume that the man was wearing Halloween zombie face paint, because no Muggle living could pull off not being immediately hospitalised with looking as Dumbledore did in that moment.

"Good evening, Severus," Dumbledore said as politely as such a weary man could as he made a beeline for the large armchair opposite the sofa on which Snape was sitting. He sat down with a very audible sigh, befitting more for the occasion of finishing a marathon instead of going from one side of a castle to the other via the most convenient transportation method available in the magical world.

"A cup of tea?" Snape asked good-naturedly as Libby had just appeared before them with the tea tray which she set on the coffee table in between the sofa and the armchair, leaving after she gracefully bowed when the men thanked her. Dumbledore only nodded in reply and Snape began pouring. Immediately the room started filling with the sweet aromas the tea-leaves released.

On his face Snape had a mild, unguarded expression, not one people were used to seeing. He was wearing his usual black, but not the heavy, professional garments one would usually see him in; instead he was dressed in a Snape version of casual. He was still wearing pants and a turtleneck that looked at least semi-casual, and at least there was no cloak to billow around him menacingly. It was what the man looked like when there were no students or outsiders to Hogwarts to see him. There was certainly no need for a frown when he was just having tea with Albus, quite unlike when he was in Malfoy manor. There he always looked appropriately stoic, and though he allowed himself to laugh or smile at the occasional jest, there was certainly nothing _unguarded_ about him when he was with the Dark Lord and his lot. It was no wonder that he preferred the headmaster's company to theirs.

"Thank you," Dumbledore said as Snape handed him his teacup.

"So, what brings you here past your bedtime?" Snape asked.

Dumbledore, as he was taking the first sip of his tea, was in the process of relaxing himself even deeper into the armchair, so much so that he looked as if he was going to start merging with the object. The armchair had a warm-coloured floral pattern (surprisingly, at least for something Snape would choose to decorate his home with) and the red of the roses contrasted with Dumbledore's ashy colouring so much that the man looked even sicker while sitting in it.

"I've had a letter that has only just arrived by owl," Dumbledore said and slowly pulled the said letter from his robes, giving it a little wave to make the parchment rustle as if to present Snape with the evidence.

Snape raised his eyebrows questioningly as thunder cracked in the far distance. A letter at this hour? And in _this_ weather?

"I am quite certain that it arrived at least half a day later than it was supposed to, given by what time it is now and by the state of the poor owl that brought it. The poor animal was drenched through, having flown through this dreadful storm," Dumbledore said and lifted his eyes to look through the window before him at the thunderclouds that have already left Hogwarts and were charging at some other poor castle, village or town. "I don't think Miss Granger was aware of what weather we were having when she was sending it," Dumbledore sighed and looked down into his teacup, as if tiredly debating whether he should pick it up again or not.

As if hit with a jolt of electricity, Snape's back straightened arrow-straight, after which his entire body froze as if he was a soldier called to attention. He fought off the reflex to allow his eyebrows to shoot up at the mention of Hermione's name, but his intake of air sharpened. There was no need for the forced poise, though, since Dumbledore didn't notice the obvious change in his behaviour.

"Well?" Snape demanded, now with a frown on his face, since Dumbledore seemed to have forgotten that something should be added to what he previously said and lost himself in thought as he was staring at his half-drank cup of tea. Snape guessed that he was probably distracted by the swirling of the stray tea leaf that escaped the strainer and ended in his cup.

Like a child.

Though it took a long time for the damage of the body to catch up with the mind and damage it as well, now it has finally begun happening. _How the mighty have fallen,_ a worse man might have gloated over the headmaster's demise. Snape, though, was a better man than that and felt sorrow and heartbreak at the sight, but he was also equally full of impatience and curiosity since he _really_ wanted to know what was in the damned letter the girl had sent. Snape had to clear his throat loudly and clank his own teacup against its plate in order to attract the headmaster's attention once more. Dumbledore only blinked twice in recognition that something had happened, looking confused.

"Oh, where was I? Yes, the owl," Dumbledore said once he came out of his trance, the fog behind his eyes beginning to clear.

"Well, I let the poor animal rest in my office," Dumbledore continued. "I dried her with a spell, naturally, and fed her some of Fawkes's food after which she hopped up on his perch to rest by his side. He was a bit surprised at her action; I don't think he ever shared his perch with anyone before, but he didn't seem to mind her one bit. It was quite an endearing sight," he added and finally lifted his cup to take another sip of his tea.

"Albus," Snape growled, losing patience, "what was in Miss Granger's letter?"

"She wrote to me..." started Dumbledore in a flat tone of voice, either not noticing Snape's annoyance or ignoring it as he unfolded the letter in order to glance over it once more and remind himself what its contents actually were. "She wrote to me to ask for permission to visit Hogwarts tomorrow via the international Floo network from Rome in order to meet with you, if tomorrow would be convenient for you. She also quite apologetically asked for me to arrange a fireplace connection with the Italian branch of the Ministry, since it is within no one else's authority to do so," Dumbledore said.

"Rome?" Snape asked with an exasperated sneer, fixing his attention to the complicated route the girl has chosen to undertake in order to get to him – rather than fixing it on the fact that what he has impatiently been waiting for was finally about to happen. Later, when Dumbledore left, that would be the time for relief and frustration that he knew would simultaneously hit.

"Must be on a family holiday," the headmaster answered the query dismissively. It was no fuss for him to arrange what the girl asked for since the spell to connect fireplaces was neither hard nor complicated, so he was not bothered by that side of things.

"She further writes that you are _expecting_ her," Dumbledore said and locked his blue eyes with Snape's whilst keeping a very pointed expression on his face, as if the tone of voice he used he let the unspoken accusation hang in the air wasn't enough.

"She hopes that we could arrange a pass for her at a time you would find to be most convenient," Dumbledore concluded and with another sigh let the hand that held up the letter fall into his lap. Along with weary, he now looked disappointed. "Severus. I have no problem with Miss Granger coming to meet with you or with arranging her passage, but since she has tactfully omitted the actual reason she is coming here, I am asking you now if you could perhaps tell me what this is all about?"

From Dumbledore's body language Snape could decipher that the man wasn't quite sure that he would get an honest answer to his question. The fidgeting was a tell-tell sign, in case the squinted eyes weren't enough. Snape didn't take the mistrust to heart, since he knew that the man was right to doubt him. The matter wasn't brought to his attention when it was supposed to, and even now he was thinking up a convincing lie to spare the old man further grief and worry.

But he knew he would have to tell Dumbledore the truth.

Miss Granger was on an obvious warpath and the fact that she didn't wait to get back on domestic soil and come to Hogwarts via a more conventional method told them both all they needed to know about the urgency of the meeting. There was nothing believable to tell Dumbledore other than how things truly were, so he reluctantly did just that.

"On the night of the Battle on the Astronomy Tower, after you had already decided to take a nap behind Miss Granger's shield, she saved me from having my jugular ripped out by Greyback and killed him in the process of it. I owe her a life debt for it. I can only assume that she is coming here because she finally decided on what she wants to claim as her payment."

People usually feel better after they get heavy things of their chests (such as secrets that should have been shared long ago), but after Snape said his part he only felt like he added an extra weight to his own burden. It pained him to see Dumbledore lean his head back against the sofa and close his eyes, releasing the heaviest sigh yet. He knew it was an extra weight for the headmaster as well; perhaps it was even heavier than it was to himself. From time to time, when Snape dived into the more honest parts of his mind, he could admit to himself that Albus most likely cared about his life and happiness much more than he himself did. Only occasionally did Snape acknowledge the love and affection Dumbledore held for him, but precisely because he was aware of how it hurt the old man to see another burden add itself to the overwhelmingly large list of burdens the man who was the closest thing he would ever have to a son, he was hurt as well.

"My boy, _why_ didn't you tell me?" Dumbledore asked in the tone of voice that suggested that he believed something could have been done about it if he had been told.

"You have enough on your plate as it is. Whatever she will ask of me will only be classified as a nuisance, not as a legitimate problem. I can take it, whatever she throws at me," Snape said, making sure to radiate placid confidence in order to assure Dumbledore that everything was going to be alright.

He believed every word he said to Dumbledore, naturally.

It was beyond his imagination to make up a scenario in which Hermione would ask of him something that would _truly_ unnerve him. If he had the power of Sight and had been able to peer miles away into the humid little hotel room in which Hermione was frantically pacing, knowing that life as she knew it was coming to an end and that the chances of having things go back to the way they were after she meets with the Professor were nil, it might have given him pause and made him reconsider his standpoint.

He would still have no clue as to what was going on, but at least he wouldn't be so damningly sure of himself. But he had no Sight to rely on. Instead, he chose to rely on his arrogance, which is why he was in for one of the greatest shocks of his lifetime when he finally finds out her plan.

"It is quite strange how these things work sometimes. With what happened that night on the tower one would expect that _I_ would be the one indebted to Miss Granger and yet... here we are," Dumbledore said sadly.

"You were choosing to die that night. That is the difference. I had no choice but to die if she hadn't acted as she did," Snape argued.

Dumbledore found that to be debatable, but didn't want to start a row about it now. He was too tired. He agreed with Snape that he was choosing to die, yes, but he didn't _want_ to die. That is where he found the catch to be.

"You will tell me what she asked of you, if the magic will allow it?" Dumbledore asked as he started the slow process of getting out of the ridiculously comfortable chair. He would have preferred to have just fallen asleep in it, knowing that Severus wouldn't mind, if not for the added backache he would have to endure when he woke up in it in the morning. About the matter of the life debt he already decided to worry as little as it was possible for him. There wasn't much choice for him in the matter other than to trust Miss Granger to know how to do the right thing in the situation she has found herself in. For both her own sake, as well as Severus', Dumbledore thought.

"Of course," Snape answered, grabbing the headmaster under his forearm and helping him get back up on his feet and walk back to the fireplace.

"What should I write her, though?" Dumbledore asked after he already grabbed a handful of Floo powder, almost forgetting that it was precisely for that bit of information that he visited his Potions master in the first place.

Snape paused in order to mentally go over his schedule.

"I have a new potion for you in the laboratory that will be finished brewing tomorrow around seven in the afternoon," he said and Dumbledore turned his face away in order to make a grimace of disgust. Some of the potions Snape made him drink tasted even worse than what he drank on the cursed little island, so the very idea of tasting Snape's new attempt made him cringe. "I won't be bothering you with it tomorrow since it will take it at least two days to cool, so tell her to be here tomorrow at...eight," Snape said, making up his mind. He would have preferred for her to come at the break of dawn so that he wouldn't be in the mode of waiting all day, but he knew it couldn't be helped.

Dumbledore nodded his head, hoping he would not forget what he was just told by the time he reached his office.

"Goodnight," he said, tossing the handful of Floo powder into the fireplace as he stepped in.

"Goodnight," Snape replied gently as he let go of Dumbledore's arm, hoping against hope that the man would actually have a good one.

* * *

I'm sorry that this piece was short, but I had to separate it from what will now be Ch7 since it is already on its way to becoming a behemoth. The curtain finally falls in the next chapter; does anyone have any guesses as to what Hermione's request will be?


	7. Chapter 7

I'm sorry for the massive delay. Life got in the way again.

* * *

Someone stupid must have disturbed space-time somehow, because there was no other explanation for time to be running so slowly; Snape insisted to himself. He was quite in the wrong, even though it was quite possible for powerful magic to disturb space-time; it was far more likely that it was his internal clock that was disturbed and not the flow of time on Earth.

He was usually a very patient man. His profession demanded it, after all. He had no problem with spending hour upon hour doing nothing but observing a potion, making sure its hue was changing just right, that it wasn't bubbling over or evaporating too quickly. An impatient man wouldn't survive the career of a Potions master, that was for sure, but waiting for Miss Granger's arrival seemed to be a challenge of an entirely different sort.

The girl wasn't late; that wasn't what the problem was. In fact, he was fairly certain that she would appear in his fireplace the very moment the clock struck eight o'clock. The problem was that three to four extra hours seemed to have crammed themselves in between noon (the time he started glancing at the clock more often than was good for him) and ten to eight – the time the grandfather clock in the corner of Snape's living room was showing now. Due to that (since always being prone to frustration) the Potions master was now a bundle of nerves. He had no doubt that the last ten minutes would make an extra effort to stretch themselves into a small eternity.

Watching pots, indeed.

He didn't bother with making a show of appearing busy for her this time. He couldn't care less that once she arrived she would catch him pacing like a caged panther and would most likely feel like she had been locked in the cage as well. And so he paced and paced until finally the first strike of the clock was heard and the fireplace lit up green. He breathed a sigh of relief. _Finally,_ it was going to be _over,_ he thought as he watched the girl step into his private quarters _._

* * *

Upon arrival Hermione found herself overwhelmed by the room in which she had walked in. Her eyes weren't quite sure which sight to feast on first because professor Snape seemed to have books _everywhere,_ making it a sight from any bookworm's wildest dreams.

The room was not very large, and it was split in two parts; on the left was the bedroom area and on the right was the sitting room area, with the grand fireplace through which she had arrived serving as a border between the two. Opposite to the fireplace was a door that was left slightly ajar, through which Hermione could see what seemed to be a corridor.

The area to her left was the significantly smaller of the two, and it was occupied entirely by the largest bed Hermione had seen in her life. It was framed from three sides by bookshelves as high as the ceiling, making the lower end the only side one could actually climb into it. The mattress's height was at the level of Hermione's thighs and the mattress itself was covered with charcoal grey bedding, along with more decorative pillows than she thought sensible; the sight of them implying that there must be a house-elf in the castle that loved playing at being an interior decorator.

And if that wasn't enough to impress Hermione, then there were the books themselves.

The back of the shelves could barely be seen from the sheer amount of them. Already Hermione noticed among them what she was certain to be a first edition of a historically very significant grimoire, and that conclusion came from just a glance. What other marvels must be hidden in plain sight, she thought, allowing herself to wonder for a moment. She had no doubt that she was standing in front of what was most likely the most fascinating personal library she would ever see in her life. Unless, of course, one day she built her own. Though, not all areas of the shelves were filled with books; by clever use of interior design some of the narrower shelves were conveniently left without them and were used instead for night-lamps or as nightstands, completing the whole picture rather splendidly. Two of them even contained potted plants.

Another quick glance at the right side of the room revealed to her a surprisingly pretty sitting room (considering whom it belonged to), also with books on display wherever they could be fitted in, but she was out of time for gawking, at least if she didn't want the grim-looking man in front of her to think her ill-mannered.

"Good evening, professor," she said timidly.

To his credit, his plan was to greet her politely as well. He found the whole ordeal repugnant, but he was fairly certain that the girl was well aware he felt that way about it, so there was no reason to go the extra mile and rub it into her face by starting the evening with being discourteous. He was determined to make at least the beginning of tonight's interaction as cordial as possible, even though he was sure it would not end on the same note. If she was planning to ask for something that she did not anticipate would infuriate him, she would not have made the precaution of asking him to allow her to invade the privacy of his home in order to avoid a scene in public. And since he knew from that information that he was probably in for an evening of shouting and arguing, he prepared himself to be on his best behaviour so that later, once Miss Granger and her tear-stained face leave Hogwarts through Albus' fireplace, he could tell the man that he at least triedto be civil _._

The only problem now was that he seemed to have hit a little snag, since he found himself to be momentarily tongue-tied, and for good reason. Even 'hello' seemed to have floated away from his mind since, at least at first glance, he found himself quite uncertain whether it was actually Miss Granger that entered the room. The girl looked to him as if she might have been Miss Granger's slightly older, but much prettier sister. She stood in front of the Potions master perfectly dolled-up for theatre, feeling ridiculous because of it, and with the self-conscious urge to explain why she was dressed so peculiarly for _this_ occasion.

When she noticed the slightly confused and irritated look on the professor's face, she knewthat she _should_ have risked being late and ran back to the hotel to change into a more plain outfit and rub out the make-up; instead she got flustered and nervous, so she chose to get a taxi unnecessarily early and arrived at the Italian branch of the Ministry with a little less than half an hour to spare before the scheduled fireplace connection was made. Once there and with no time to go back she could only hope that the professor wouldn't look at her as if she had suddenly grown two heads, but hope proved false.

For starters, there was the make-up that had taken him aback. Not only was he not used to seeing it on her (the only colour usually noticeable on Hermione was the purple from the circles under her eyes), but the face of the girl who he knew to be a seventeen year old now looked as if it belonged to a young woman not a day under twenty-one, though not in a bad way.

Then there was her hair; the usually wild mane that served as her trademark in the halls of Hogwarts was clipped back loosely except for a few locks that were left out deliberately to frame her face.

Even though it was made for summer, the champagne-coloured dress she was wearing left a lot for the imagination. It covered her up to her neck, ended right at her knees and covered her arms right to her elbows; but it cinched in the middle quite breathtakingly, showing off a tiny waist and flowing around her lightly as she moved to show a nigh-perfect hourglass figure. Her outfit was completed by a clutch that she was gripping nervously in her hands and on her feet were heels so high that they looked like a perfect invitation for a broken ankle.

"Umm," Hermione started as elegantly as Ron might have, "I've just come from the theatre," she said awkwardly.

He ignored her comment, having no desire to lead her to believe that her appearance somehow affected him, even though he had already failed to respond to her greeting. Whereas a typical teenage boy who usually never noticed her in the crowd might have now howled at the sight of her, professor Snape, on the other hand, was a grown man and was only slightly taken aback by the change; it was certainly enough to be startled, but no more than that.

"Sit," he said to her in the same tome of voice in which he usually orders the students to begin with their brewing. "Please," he added after a beat, remembering that the plan was not to forget his manners, and begrudgingly gestured at the sofa and the armchair.

Even though he was well aware of the fact that she had not come to him in the function of a student, but in that of an _almost_ Order member, it seemed that it would take him some time to adjust to that fact. But, oh, how he wished that courtesy was not required and that he could just order her about.

"Thank you," she said, but remained standing for a moment, unsure which piece of furniture to choose. Seemingly with a very low supply of patience today, he made the choice for her and moved past her to sit on the two-seater beneath the window. Naturally she had no intention of joining him there, so she made a beeline for his floral-patterned armchair and sat herself on its very edge instead of sinking into it, despite how very inviting it looked.

Much to Hermione's surprise, the armchair offered a perfect view of the Black lake and if the curtains hadn't been drawn slightly, she felt sure she would have been able to see the edge of the Forbidden forest. At the bottom of the window she could see large red rose-bushes. None of this would have been peculiar if she didn't remember that when one stands on the bank of the lake, the view of Hogwarts offers no windows to be seen until at least the second story, certainly not on the ground floor where Snape's rooms were located. She was unsure, though, whether she remembered any rose bushes being there, so she made a mental note to bully the boys into a stroll once term begins in order to investigate.

"That window is charmed, isn't it? I can see the walking lane of the lake and I remember this side of the castle looking bare," she said conversationally, trying to avoid an uncomfortable silence that was sure to begin setting if she left the matters to him.

"Obviously," he drawled in the usual condescending manner reserved for any non-Slytherin student, and Hermione dropped her gaze to her lap. She knew him to be a hard man to be around, and stepping out of line is something one did no matter how hard they tried not to displease him. If he was any other man she would have found him infuriating, but the air of authority around him had such an effect on her that she silently agreed with him that, in retrospect, she _had_ asked a stupid question. _Obviously,_ indeed. She shuffled on the chair, unsure what to say or do next and with the desperate need not to make eye contact with the man just yet, so she reached for the clutch resting on the coffee table in order to take out her notes.

Her discomfort was not hard to read for him, especially after her cheeks flushed. He realised that he had embarrassed her without actually intending to, for a change. He cursed inwardly. She was far too easy to embarrass. The answer he gave her was carried with the inertia of his usual nastiness, and though he deemed such behaviour acceptable in a classroom, he knew that in his private rooms and in this very special situation he ought to act more like a gentleman and less like a smug ruffian. If they really were at a lecture or in a similar setting he would not have minded one bit that he made the know-it-all feel bad, but he knew full well that this situation now had to be rectified or else she would turn into a bundle of nerves and he would not be able to get anything out of her until the Hogwarts bells struck midnight.

"A simple permanent Disillusionment charm, not even a strong one at that," he expanded his previous answer while making sure his voice had a more pleasant tone than before, though he still sounded a bit gruff, "no one ever walks near this side of the castle to be able to see through it," he added to his explanation, and Hermione knew him well enough to realise that she was actually being thrown a bone.

It wasn't much, but it was encouraging enough for her to look up from the notes in her lap and look the man in the eye.

She nodded and gave him a very hesitant smile, but still refrained from asking about the technicalities of the spell (even though she really wanted to know what its range was), in fear of speaking out of turn 'again'.

The uncomfortable silence Hermione dreaded settled itself in the room very comfortably.

Snape wanted to bark at the girl to just get on with it, but he refrained from such behaviour because he knew her well enough to know it would be counterproductive. He sighed and leaned his elbow on the armrest, pinching his nose. An ice-breaker was in order, he knew that much.

"Libby," he called out to the empty space between them. He startled Hermione and she frantically started turning her head to look around the room in order to see if there was someone hiding behind the edge of her peripheral vision about to pounce upon her. She was startled even more, and some of her notes almost slipped out of the folder in her lap, when next to her Apparated an elderly female house-elf.

Libby was wearing a small maroon dress which was probably intended for a human child when it was being sown and on her neck was a small yellow shawl. She positively beamed at the sight of Hermione. She was privy to most of the Potions master's secret and knew the reason behind the girl's visit (and how much grief it was causing her master), but she didn't care about it one bit. Libby thought her Severus was being far too fussy about paying someone back for saving his life, and could use the experience to learn some gratitude. Besides, she learned from the kitchens that Miss Granger was a delightful human being (Dobby put out a very good word for her), and she always wished for her master to entertain someone other than the Headmaster from time to time.

And this beautiful young girl, even though the old elf knew her to be a student, was a good start. Life-debt payments and unnecessary fussiness be damned.

"I would like some tea and I am guessing that Miss Granger would not mind the same," he said and Libby turned her bright, big eyes to the young Miss to seek confirmation.

"Tea would be lovely, thank you" Hermione answered somewhat reluctantly. She was still not too happy to be served by house-elves, even though she was slowly getting used to if after getting on good terms with Kreacher. It as a hard lesson for Hermione to learn, that, even if they are indeed free like Dobby is, it really is best to just let them do what they want and stop trying to bully them into a career change. It took one very distressed Kreacher crying in the corner about the 'young Miss being cruel to poor old Kreacher who has always been a good elf and doesn't deserve the sock' to realise what she was doing actually could be considered as cruelty. Everyone at Grimmauld place (especially Harry, Ron and Sirius) let out a sigh of relief after she told them the news that she was done with S.P.E.W. and would from now on allow Kreacher to wait on her without complaint.

Though, there was something strange about the elf in front of her, Hermione mussed. There was something more behind Libby's big, blue eyes than just the usual great urge to please usually found in house-elves. Not that she considered other house-elves stupid, but Hermione could see and feel even from a glance that there was an intelligence about Libby that is not found in the other house-elves. She felt herself being scrutinised, even though the elf seemed delighted to see her. Hermione realised that she felt as if she was in the presence of an overprotective, but very loving grandmother.

"And biscuits," Snape added and received a toothy grin and a nod from Libby as an answer, after which she popped back to the kitchens.

Snape relaxed himself into the sofa a bit more, crossed one leg over the knee of the other and looked at the girl in front of him. Though the body language of her lowered head, hunched shoulders and tightly squeezed legs still gave off the signs of an animal trying to shrink itself in size in order to appear less threatening to the other, obviously stronger animal of the same species; her face and eyes now looked perplexed (Libby had obviously intrigued her) instead of having the deer in headlights look they had previously, which he found to be a significant improvement.

 _There,_ he thought, pleased with himself.

 _Ice broken._

Now he just needed to get the conversation going.

"From the size of _that,"_ he gestured at the red folder that Hermione was now clutching at her chest, _"_ I am guessing that this won't be a short affair," he said. He hadn't added any extra warmth into his voice or taken out the ever-present edge of sarcasm, but she could tell from his mannerisms that what he wanted was for her to relax in his presence.

"Well," she started, trying not just to sound brave, but trying to _be_ brave as well as she drew a big, nervous breath. _Remember, even in a snake's pit, a lion is still a lion_ , she told herself as encouragement and said to him "that really all depends on you."

"You are expecting me to put up a fight then," he said as his small, ironic smile tugged itself to life in one corner of his mouth. Oh, they both knew at this point that he was going to put up a fight. Now that he actually had her here after months of nerve-wrecking waiting he knew he would snap and bark at her no matter what she asked for, even if just for the sake of keeping appearance that was an ox-headed git. She could ask as payment that he allow her to polish all his shoes and he would still throw a ceremonious fit. One cannot get into Slytherin without being at least a bit of a diva.

"Well, yes." she answered bluntly, calling up to the surface all the courage the Sorting hat saw in her when it put her in Gryffindor. She was minutes away from finally revealing her grand plan and she could feel the sweat starting to break on her back from how anxious the situation was making her.

"Because, you see, in order to finally address the elephant in the room, I am certain that you will find what I will ask of you horrifying," she said with an appropriately apologetic expression on her face. She wanted him to know that she felt as bad for him as she felt for herself. Though, nothing about his body language told her that he was even a little bit apprehensive, and she found herself a bit frustrated with how lightly he was taking the gravity of the occasion.

She couldn't know that, as he watched her watching him, for the umpteenth time he found himself wondering just how bad could it possibly be? What was she planning to do? Force him into making Albus' antidote out of his own testicles? He fought off the impulse to chuckle at that thought as it crossed his mind, so as not to upset her with his private entertainment.

"But on the other hand, I think that if we manage to come to turns with the conditions of the deal I will propose, I strongly believe we have at least a ninety percent certainty of saving professor Dumbledore's life," she said apprehensively, knowing full well that she's dropped a bomb on him.

She watched him intently, hungry to see his reaction to her statement, but was disappointed to see that there was none. True, a little vein definitely started to twitch on his forehead, but his facial expression was the same as before, as if she had just commented on the weather. The only true change was the fact that if someone had taken a knife out, they would have been able to use it to cut the newfound tension in the air between them.

With the staring contest that had just begun, armchair versus couch (something bordering hate from his side and sheer determination from hers), one could not guess why they have even bothered with the pleasantries and trying to be nice to each other for full three minutes. They finally found themselves in the deadlock in which they knew they would wound up from the start.

Anger and derision erupted in his mind like very violent volcanoes, though he still sat silent and motionless as he stared into the girl's eyes, presumably trying to burn a hole through her head; at least that is how it felt to Hermione. _What did the girl think he was doing for the past year?_ The question rang in his mind angrily _. Brewing Dumbledore a series of calming droughts?_ He knew better than anyone (according to himself) what the list of cures one could try on Dumbledore looked like and he had tried just about every one of them and as of yet _nothing_ has worked. And what remained on the list was also unlikely to be effective. Nowadays his main focus was slowly becoming trying to make the headmaster's end as painless as possible, though even that would prove to be a difficult feat; he felt certain of it.

That's why it made his blood boil to hear her say that she had found a miracle cure. To hear _her_ , a mere student, boast that she figured out what he hadn't been able after all these months made him want to get up and break all the furniture in the room. _Fuck_ the missing information! his mind screamed. He was supposed to be good enough to be able to figure it all out on his own. But apparently he wasn't, or at least that is what he thought. The fact that there was Horcrux magic involved had not reached even the edge of his wildest dreams. He did not have the knowledge that a young Tom Riddle had made a blunder and left Horace Slughorn alive to prance around with the crucial information about the one weakness that could prove to be his downfall. He could not know that even Dumbledore himself hearing about it was a series of happy accidents. All he had at the moment was self-loathing and the need to catapult Miss Granger out of his sight.

Hermione felt the strangest sort of relief now that she finally had him his usual angry state that she was used to. She found it paradoxical that it suddenly became easier for her to breathe. As entertaining the memory of professor Snape trying to play the role of the pleasant host will be later on (if she survives this encounter and is given a chance to reminisce) she was finally standing on familiar ground and that gave her enough gall to meet his fury and irritation like a true Gryffindor would - head on.

"You lack information," she stated firmly as she looked him straight in the eye with a pointed look, as if daring him to challenge her statement.

It was the wrong thing to say (though she wasn't sure that the rightthing to say to him at the moment even existed), because he now looked like an enraged bull who had a red fabric dangled in front of him.

For starters, there wasn't anything in the statement to challenge, because it was the truth. The rational part of him knew she didn't mean it that way, but it still felt like she was only saying it in order to rub it in. He was well aware of the fact that helacked information, but there was a legitimate reason behind it and they both knew it. If he was told anything vital, then the Dark Lord might possibly find out that the Order had information about him which he thought to be a dead secret. There was nothing that could be done to change that fact. Nothing could fortify his Occlumency shields to withstand the Dark Lord's strongest attack on his mind should it ever happen. It was a moot point to even discuss this and for the life of him he couldn't figure out where she was going with it.

Patience was supposed to be his strong suit, but now that he was confronted with a problem so irrational, he seemed to be running out of it. He had half a mind to just forcefully expel her from his rooms and have the whole affair be done with, but he dismissed that desire in its very inception. He knew what he would have to deal with later on if he did that and the temporary pleasure he would receive would not be worth it in the aftermath of the events. He was her professor. He was an Order member. He'd have too many people trying to blow his head off it they found out that the Princess of Gryffindor had been mistreated by the evil git. He'd have a cavalry charge straight at him.

And then there was the magic of the life-debt pulsing in his very temples, suggesting that even _it_ might have a hand at blowing his head off it her tried denying the girl what she wanted. What was rightfully hers.

Whatever the hell that even was.

"Well then, Miss Granger," he grit through his teeth as venom dripped from his voice, "enlighten me."

And so she began.

"Most importantly," she started with an even voice, trying not to give away just how nervous she was to present her findings, "I would like you to know what the basis for my theory on why you have as of yet been unable to heal professor Dumbledore is."

He raised a derisive eyebrow at that, but she refused to bulge and continued.

"Based on the information about the potions you have made so far, I realised that you are..." she paused, searching for the words from which he would not be able to deduce anything significant and also at the same time wouldn't infuriate him even further, "beyond any doubt, completely on the wrong track." It was, once more, the wrong thing to say, but she found that there was no other way to say it, so she squeaked out her last words as her survival instinct started to wave a frantic hand at the back of her mind, trying to signal to her that now might be a good time to look out for him drawing his wand with the intention of cursing her into oblivion.

Much to her relief, his only reaction was an involuntary twitch of an eye and his mouth sourly becoming even more thin-lipped, giving him the look of a person who had just been forced to bite into a lemon. He hadn't expected to be told upfront that just from a list of potions and their ingredients she could determine that he was treating Dumbledore for the wrong type of curse. A normal Potions master's curiosity would have been woken somewhere around this point, as well as a belief that there just might be something in it, judging from Hermione's ill-concealed fervour, but Snape was refusing to bulge and his mind instead preoccupied itself with thinking about how embarrassingly wrong her theory would probably prove to be, if he even gets to hear it.

"I still cannot go into further details," she said as she nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "but I came here to tell you that I have found a way we could bypass the fact that the information about the curse cannot be inside your head in case your Occlumency shields somehow fail you and You Know Who finds out that you know about it."

Instead of curiosity, quiet alarm bells started ringing in Snape's mind, growing louder as he digested every word Hermione had said. _Just now? Still_ _not supposed to know? Bypassing_ _all that?_ What in the devil's name has the girl's mind conjured up and in just what way would it prove to be his ruin?

Just as he was about to menacingly growl at her to explain herself, Libby popped back into the room with the tea-tray; her timing impeccable as always.

Hermione was right in her suspicion that Libby was a wise old elf. It didn't take Libby more than a few seconds to grasp the awkwardness of the room (as well as the state her master was in) and after she set the tea-trey on the table, she immediately picked up the plate containing the Potion's master's favourite biscuits. She held it in front of him with a mildly threatening expression on her face, all the while angling her body so that Hermione couldn't see it, until she bullied him into shoving two cookies at once into his mouth; she did so in order to prevent him from spitting curses at Hermione like a cat dunked into water, which was exactly what he would have done had she not come just in time to save the day. He glared at her as a response. Displeasing her master was not something she strived to do, but it had to be done in order to avoid any rudeness towards young Miss Granger.

And her special coconut biscuits always had their way of deterring his anger, she thought with grandmotherly pride as she watched him start chewing.

Snape begrudgingly nodded his thanks to Libby and the beaming elf left them to the awkwardness of the room once more.

Hermione thought for a moment about pouring the tea, but decided against it and continued while there was still a wave of adrenaline present in her blood for her to ride it, even though it dissipated a bit after she saw the anticlimactic scene of professor Snape being bullied to fill his cheeks full of biscuits like a hamster by a house-elf.

Snape grabbed the tea-kettle and started pouring for them, glad that there was something there for him to do to provide even a small distraction, even if it was just being mother.

"I have a rough draft of what I think the potion that would work should look like", she said and Snape showed another biscuit into his mouth while the vein on his forehead worked itself into a state of nigh-bursting. _Oh, really?_ he thought with venom as she continued, "but I know full well that only a very skilled Potions master would be able to truly create it, let alone brew it," she said as her voice grew quieter and he picked up a small tremor in it. His gaze involuntarily fell to her lap where her surprisingly manicured hands rested and he noticed that they were shaking, as well as the fact that she was trying to hide it by gripping the folder.

There was much more there for him to notice than just that.

Her small earrings dazzled in the light of the sunset as she moved her head. Her dress caught all the shades of gold of the incoming light of the sunset, enhancing the colour of champagne and giving the dress a luminous effect. With her head hanging low, as if she was ashamed to show him her painted face, as well as to avoid looking him in the eyes as she told him all the things he did not have the slightest wish to hear, she looked as radiant and angelic as does the Madonna on the renaissance paintings. He could admit to himself that she indeed made a pretty sight, one that he might have even enjoyed, if she had not been in front of him in the function of both the judge and the jury, passing down her verdict for what exactly he deserved for allowing himself to be saved from the hungry mouth of a werewolf.

"There would be no point in me trying to brew it. Or in anyone else from the circle of the people that could be trusted. You are the only man with the necessary skill, so it _has_ to be you, Professor, no matter what it takes," she said as her pleading doe eyes pierced into him. She was begging, demanding and commanding, all at the same time.

"But first we need deal with shielding all this from You Know Who and go through the loophole I have found," she added quietly.

"Yes, but will you finally tell me _how_?" he burst out angrily and his annoyance with her forced even more colour into Hermione's already blazing cheeks. She was beginning to look like a Weasley on a bad summer day.

Has the girl really thought of something Dumbledore hadn't thought of? he thought, momentarily allowing for the possibility. _Or was it just something the man would be of too sound a mind to ask, but the girl-child wouldn't?_ he wondered, afraid that he already knew the answer to that question.

"Well, then," he ground out as he gesticulated with his hand in the general direction of the folders she found herself clutching at her chest after his outburst, in that way indicating that she still had his attention and should continue. He watched as she bit her lip and fidgeted in the chair, reluctant to start again until she noticed his eyebrow rise questioningly, hinting at her that it's about time for her to get on with it.

"Well, you see, it isn't a simple request," she said.

"I never expected it would be," he lied blatantly. And to think he thought he could get away from a situation like this by offering to brew the Felix Felicis. He said the words as gently as he was able. He wanted her lulled into the belief that she is safe in his presence, that they were in this together, so that he could finally get to the bottom of the secret she was dangling in front of him and was still refusing to reveal.

"It will take quite some time to explain," she said, taking her lower lip between her teeth again and releasing it, "but I think the best way to start is to tell you about the events that made me get the idea."

It took just about all he had to fight off the instinct to roll his eyes at that. _Even more talking,_ he despaired.

"I expect I will be calling for dinner later, then," he said, deadpanned.

Hermione chose not to acknowledge the snarky comment and continued, but silently agreed with the statement that this meeting just might drag itself out that long if he proved to be more difficult than she expected.

"You see, at the beginning of the last school year, when professor Dumbledore told Harry that he would take over Harry's private lessons from you, which would not include Occlumency," she said, trying to go over that subject as casually as it was possible, knowing that whatever happened between Harry and him was an embarrassing sore spot. She noticed that the professor tightened his grip on the armrest of the sofa, but refrained from commenting so she continued; "Ron and I got the idea that, with Harry's rudimentary experience and knowledge of Occlumency, and with what information I could get from the books, we should try and practice it ourselves when we could steal enough time for it. We thought it to be very important for Harry to continue. We thought it was quite a good idea...at the time," she explained, volunteering every word more and more reluctantly than the previous one.

Hermione paused there in order to gather her thoughts, with her gaze once more stuck somewhere on her knees and refusing to meet his. She had not given him enough information about where she was headed with the subject, but from this point on it was more than enough information for him to start guessing relatively easily in which direction she was headed. If a figurative map of this conversation existed, she had finally entered the 'here be dragons' territory.

Snape's hand froze midair as he was reaching for his teacup on the table; his gaze remained glued to the swirling tea-leaf inside the cup. As a reaction to her words, there was no room inside him left for any feelings other than disbelief and shock. Even fury would have to wait for him to process what he had just heard, and he wished that he had time and space to do it on his own. He wished that she would disappear into thin air for a while so that he could calm himself enough not to pounce at the girl's throat like a hyena once she finally verbalizes what she wants from him, which he was now almost certain he knew what it was (even though she still thought him blissfully clueless).

"Do I guess correctly that it took you a very short while to realise what an incredibly stupid idea that was?" he asked softly and quietly, his voice not showing even a hint of the fury that was beginning to rush through him, seeking her eyes with his own as he waited for her to lift her head.

"Yes, Sir," she answered as her cheeks coloured themselves beet-red.

He hadn't gone wild with rage as soon as she started talking about Occlumency, so she thought that, so far, it was going well. When she was making up mental scenarios of this conversation during the last couple of days, she decided that if he didn't expel her from his quarters at the very mention of Occlumency he just might prove to have an open mind, but she unfortunately misread his calm demeanour. He _did_ have a certain pattern of behaviour that one could learn after observing him for years; she was used to him losing his temper the very instant he became irritated and since he still hadn't shown a reaction, it lulled her into thinking that he was still nowhere near guessing the direction her request would take, or, if he did, that it wasn't something that made his blood boil.

"We soon realised that Ron had absolutely no aptitude for it, so it was basically just me and Harry doing it alone every couple of days. In the Room of Requirement", she added, guessing from the irritable, yet questioning look that he was giving her that that might be the question he was asking with his eyes.

"We felt that we got the hang of it, but after a while some...slight complications have arisen," she added reluctantly.

"I think that calling the fact that your minds started merging a _slight complication_ is downplaying it significantly," he said, no longer concealing the venom in his voice. _The brightest witch of her age,_ they called her, much to his scorn and disapproval. _The golden trio,_ they called them collectively. More like The Residential Idiots of Hogwarts, he thought spitefully.

What they could have done to their minds if the equivalent of what Splinching does to the body, and Potter could have ended up in a state in which one day only a part of him would have had to face the Dark Lord in a body that had breasts, he thought bitterly.

Hermione shut her eyes tightly in despair for a moment, scraping the bottom of her small barrel of courage, realising that any minute now she would be running only on fumes.

"Miss Granger, what is this an overture for? Because I am starting to feel as if I should be afraid for my sanity with the direction you've taken the conversation in," he asked with a note of warning in his voice, as if he was giving her a chance to back out of the foolishness she had concocted. She would have done so, if not for the fact that she kept reminding herself that he owed her a life debt and had no actual way of refusing her once she makes her request, no matter how big of a fuss he makes prior to it; so she soldiered on, because of Harry and Ron and herself and all the rest whose lives she thought depended on this moment, albeit not very confidently.

"Harry and I managed to," she paused again, searching for the right words, " _untangle_ ourselves, and I haven't thought about our failure at Occlumency ever since; that is, until the morning after the Battle on the Astronomy tower. After the events of that night I knew that I had to find a way to tell you about the nature of professor Dumbledore's curse and then I remembered what Harry and I experienced. I remembered how we seemed to have lost certain memories to each other, only to retrieve them afterwards. And it got me thinking."

She shuffled in the chair, suddenly excited about the prospect of presenting to him the fascinating research and discoveries she had made on the subject, hoping to intrigue him and show him that what she would suggest was not actually a bad idea, but he beat her to it.

"And it got you thinking about the McGreen merging," he stated in the tone of voice one might use to comment on the weather, but there was such a finality to his words that when she looked up into his eyes she saw that they were burning with anger and loathing. She quickly turned away, feeling that she might crumble under the weight of the gaze.

 _So he knows about it,_ she thought, suddenly miserable. No dumbing it down for him then; no concealing from him some of the nastier consequences the practice might have.

The McGreen Merging was in the same branch of psychological magic as Legilimency, but it was different from it in only one way.

Whereas a Legilimens _reads_ the mind of the person as if one is reading the page of a book, one who uses the McGreen merging _takes_ a memory or a thought from the other person and experiences all the feelings that come along with it, as if it was their own. The return of the memory is possible and until that is done, the original owner is left only with residual impressions; as if one had read the memory from another person by use of Legilimency long ago and could now barely remember it.

Scott McGreen discovered the technique in the late nineteenth century, after his wife Sarah suffered severe head trauma and lost all memory of him, their marriage and their three children. Since both he and his wife had been very proficient at Legilimency and Occlumency (and she remained proficient even after the injury), through mutual effort they have found a way to share his memories between each other and continued their happy marriage; the result of which got named after them. Though their story was written down in the pages of history with a happy ending, once Healers got their hands on the research and started using the merging for patients suffering from amnesia (even though the initial results proved to be a success) almost every merging ended up as a disaster and had to be terminated.

"Ancient e _xperimental magic_ ," Snape spat out resentfully, now thinking her to be an even bigger idiot than that time when she thought it would be a good idea to jump out of hiding on the Astronomy platform, "that has been forbidden by law because of how many people lost their minds practicing it!" he shouted at her as he got up from the couch, no longer able to sit still now that she finally let the demonic cat out of its bag. Hermione opened her mouth in order to put a word in about the fact that one would not actually lose their mind in the beginning of the process if they aborted the practice once an incompatibility issue occurred, but he continued without letting her make a sound. He moved to the centre of the room and was now pacing in the area in front of the fireplace, his slippered feet (Hermione was actually a tad bit shocked to see the most intimidating professor in the world wearing his slippers) making rustling sounds on the rich fabric of the carpet.

There was no mincing words with the man, apparently. He went straight to the main point and started talking about exactly what she wanted to avoid, making her cringe inside. She had hoped he'd be clueless about the merging so that she could break it all down to him gradually; she did not count on having all the nasty bits about it thrown in her face in an exaggerated manner.

"Has it come across in your research just how strong a mental link it takes between two people to successfully borrow memories, as well as just what it takes to achieve a link strong enough so that people don't lose their minds in the process of it?" Hermione tried again to get a word in, but was only allowed to impersonate a guppy opening and closing its mouth as he continued. "Do you realise that you want us parading around with the very memories and information that _define_ our identities?" he asked as his pacing came to a stop. He put one hand on his hip and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other in an effort to calm himself down.

He tried to focus on the sound of birds chirping in the trees in the distance. He tried to focus on the soft crackling sounds the wood made while it was burning in his fireplace. Then he tried to focus on the sound of his own heart beating and on his breath, but it was all to no avail; there was nothing in or around Hogwarts that could bring him even an ounce of peace (other than Miss Granger suddenly changing her mind) and that could take away the wrenching anxiety he felt.

He did his best to call up all the knowledge he had on the McGreen merging in order to find some argument that would make her forgo her intent, even though he knew from experience that no amount of reasonable arguments was going to be enough. He admitted that she _did_ have more sense than an average Gryffindor, but that did not mean she had a lot of it.

After all, this was the girl who once, while time-travelling, howled to attract a werewolf's attention while deciding that running away from it and seeing how it went was the plan. And that was just one example of her famous death-inviting escapades.

The grand master-plan now was that she wanted them to slowly start connecting their minds with the intention of implanting into his own whatever memory she had that she thought would be vital in curing Albus' curse. Knowing her to be a thorough researcher (since it was not uncommon for her to hand in a paper three times longer than was demanded), he knew that she had to be aware of the required embarrassing process of exchanging heaps of random and insignificant, but personal memories in order to get their minds in tune for the proper borrowing of the 'big one' (because it could even kill him if they tried to do it without the acclimatisation process); as well as of the later dependency on each other that would probably develop as days went on. That would mean that soon after they began with the process, they would have to be constantly in each other's proximity in order to feel safe (because, as he already shouted at her, bundles of information on their own identities would be in the other person and they would develop an obsessive need to keep an eye on each other); like small children with the teddies that they cannon fall asleep without.

And then there is that slight snag that if they stepped a toe out of line, their minds would get tangled painfully and they would have to be sent to the Janus Thickey ward of St. Mungo's in order to get them untangled. Not the mention the legal consequences that would ensue if the Ministry found out what they were trying to do.

A teacher and a student.

"Have you been Confunded!?" he shouted at her again the very moment she opened her mouth to answer his previous question. He felt desperately defeated. He was stretched so thin between the Dark Lord and Albus as it is that he was sometimes too weary to get out of bed in the morning, and now this damned girl had to show up and kick him where it hurts.

He could practically hear the figurative leash and chain jingling.

Hermione guessed that she would just have to wait until he gathered his thoughts and became a bit calmer in order to be allowed to speak again.

She knew that he had a good point. A very good point, actually. There were so many problems documented about the technique that she was far from certain that it was even achievable for a professor and a student; she knew full well that they both might just end up with a mind-splitting headache and a dead end just from their first session, but she thought it was more than worth the shot.

If only he thought that as well, despite all the stuff in small-writing.

The Healers working on the McGreen merging, at the time when it was still a legal practice, found that the chance for success was less than four percent. The reason behind such a disheartening number was the fact that not just any pair of people could try to share their memories. Every time two closely related family members (such as parents with their children, or even siblings) tried to merge in order for the healthy person to give their memories to the one with lost memories, their minds would reject each other. It happened because, on the example of parents and their children, the parent already had such strong impressions of their child weaved into their memory of them, making it impossible for the child to untangle those feelings from the memory, and since a healthy mind cannot go along with the prospect of loving itself as if it was its own child, the memory ended up rejected.

Successful mergings were only possible between very few pairs of people, who all had to have a very select set of circumstances. That is why it was possible for Hermione and Harry to successfully merge and afterwards untangle without any consequences. They were best friends fighting a war together. Their circumstances were, in fact, perfect for it. Hermione, naturally, knew all this, as did (unfortunately for her) professor Snape; but where she saw an opportunity for the successful transfer of the memory of her finding out about the Horcruxes, he saw only lunacy.

"I refuse," he said, calmly; his decision sounding firm and final.

Immediately after the words came out of his mouth he experienced a sensation not known to many men before him. It was unlike anything he had felt in his entire life. It felt as if a hand made out of air clutched at his throat. It felt as if poison was suddenly running through his veins. It felt like he was drowning, burning alive, bathing in acid and being ran over by the Hogwarts Express; all at the same time.

But there was no actual pain, or any actual discomfort of the physical kind.

It was just a psychological warning that there _was_ going to be pain unless he stopped being difficult. The sensations went away before he even had the time to process them. That was the way of the magic of the life-debt telling him that he had no right to refuse her, unless it's death that he wished for. According to the law of equal exchange, he had to pay back what he was due.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked him uncertainly, hesitantly leaning over towards him to try and get his eyes to focus back onto her after he stared into nothing for a bit longer that was polite or comfortable.

She knew from extensive reading that if someone refuses to pay back a life-debt, the magic intervenes and puts in front of them the final choice of forfeiting their life or changing their minds. From the way his face was beginning to turn into a white sheet, she thought that that might be what was happening now. Of course, the mind of a teenage girl lead her to imagine that he was having a conversation with a ghost-like figure and was being gently nudged to change his mind, when in fact he was finding out what it feels like to be inside one of his cauldrons while the fire is lit under it.

"Don't touch me!" he managed to sneer at her just before she touched his arm with the intention of gently tugging on it. He withdrew it from her quickly, but she did not find herself offended by his disgusted tone because she could tell how distressed he suddenly became.

She wished she could ask him what he felt; if maybe he'd seen something, or perhaps heard a voice. But she knew better from the death-glare that was suddenly pointed her way. _If looks could kill,_ she thought, and was glad that they couldn't.

She guessed that he thought she was being unfair to him; that life was being unfair to him by sticking her to him in this way, and she was right in her assumption.

He had a brand on his forearm to prove that he belonged to one Master since he was younger than she was now. He had made a vow that made him a slave to a Cause, making Dumbledore at least his handler, if not an actual second Master. And now a third player, a very much uninvited one, had decided that she wanted to join the table.

He walked over to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a large Firewhiskey; the last resort of the completely beaten down.

With a swing of the arm the contents of the tumbler were already poured down his throat, burning it pleasantly, and he slammed down the glass on the metal tray. Hermione flinched at the violent sound and comforted herself that she wasn't offered one because she was a student and a minor; not because he completely reverted back to being a rude bastard and the thought of offering it to her hadn't even cross his mind. He thought about pouring himself another one, though; then he thought about throwing the bottle at Hermione's head, but he did neither and with whatever dignity he had left he walked back to the couch and sat himself down again.

"How are you suggesting that this should work?" he asked in a voice that indicated that all life's energy and joy had been sucked out of him.

 _Oh, he's changed his mind so quickly,_ she thought, but then remembered the previous look on his face. It didn't take much to put two and two together. _So there_ was _magical interference that made him change his mind,_ she thought, still surprised at how sudden the change of mind was, but knew better than to comment on it.

"Well," she started, clearing her throat anxiously as she started shuffling through the notes she brought to find the right one to show him, "I've worked out a way for us to be in the close proximity that is necessary for the merging without raising any eyebrows from the other professors or the students once the school year stars," she said as Snape raised a mocking eyebrow, wondering at how she still managed to sound so engaged and lively.

"I was thinking that we could announce that you've taken me on as your apprentice. That way I could live down here with you for a while," she said and went back to trying to make herself look small and unthreatening, hoping that she wasn't going to get mauled because of what she said.

"Oh, bloody hell," he exclaimed accusingly, "don't you think that I have enough on my plate as it is!?"

His facial expression went back to looking resentful, as well as a little astounded by the selfishness of the request. Hermione winced at the statement, finding herself offended that he thought she meant that literally and actually wanted to add an extra weight onto his shoulders, so she went on to set the record straight.

"I only meant that we could use it an excuse, not to add you extra work," she said defensively, sounding prim as she fought her cheeks from starting to burn from embarrassment again.

As if she did not know that she was going to be a big enough of a nuisance as it is. To think that he thought that she was trying to squeeze Potions apprenticing into the programme in order to extract extra benefit from the situation was absurd. She thought he knew her better than that after so many years of keeping a close eye on her (as he looked for the signs of the next troublesome situation the idiotic trio was going to throw themselves in) and it hurt to think that he didn't automatically realise it would be a ruse and that she would never try to inconvenience him more than what was strictly necessary.

She thought about saying all that to his face, but found that her supply of courage had finally drained out, so there was nothing left for her to do but to keep quiet and clench her fists in frustration.

While Hermione was trying to resolve her personal struggle on what to say and how to approach him next without getting her face hacked off, Snape had reached a decision.

He was a grown man, a fairly reasonable one, and even though it pained him, he came to turns with the fact that if he tried to struggle against her request, he would die; there was just no changing that fact. He was still far from thinking the entire plot was not lunacy, but even if the chance of success was marginal and the process would probably turn out to be hell on earth, at least he would pay his debt and would have her off his back. Since he was left without a choice (other than just dropping dead), his mind sought comfort by occupying itself with sorting out the technicalities.

The excuse of taking her on as an apprentice (now that she cleared up the fact that it actually would be just an excuse) was a clever idea, he admitted. There hadn't been an apprenticeship in Hogwarts in quite a few years, but it would definitely work, he thought as he went through the details of it in his mind. Albus would not need any convincing since he was well acquainted with the situation, and the rest of the faculty would not be a bit surprised that it was Miss Granger that chose to become a Hogwarts apprentice; though it might be a bit confusing why she chose Potions of all of the subjects.

At least he would get something to lord over Minerva and Septima, he thought with smugness as he imagined the dirty, jealous looks the elderly witches would probably throw his way, and cheered him up a bit.

"Go back to your parents and tell them you will finish your summer break earlier this year and come back tomorrow with your things. I'll have a room ready for you by then. At the same time as today," he said and felt a rush of relief because of it; not because he was glad with the idea, but because he knew that with those words the conversation of this evening had finally come to its end. He was the one holding the short straw in this situation (though Hermione would argue that they both were, being in the same soup), but at least this chapter of his life was finally _over._

Hermione mustered up all the self-restraint and grace she had within her and got up for the armchair without throwing herself at his chest in gratitude. She thanked him in a rush of words and picked up her things, knowing he would appreciate it if she didn't linger. The other reason she had for wanting to leave immediately was that she was afraid that tears might start welling up in her eyes, and she didn't want him to see her like that.

There would be plenty of time for crying later.

She walked over to the fireplace and he watched her go.

Her fingers were still trembling, he noticed. Begrudgingly he acknowledged how much courage it had to take her to come before him and demand of him what she had demanded. He couldn't imagine any other girl (or, to put it better, young woman, with how she looked tonight) doing as she did. If he was any other man he would admire her for it, but since he was Severus Snape, he still only thought her a courageous little idiot. A lion cub walking into a snake's den and walking out alive is sheer luck, not an actual accomplishment to be proud of.

"Until tomorrow, then," she said, repressing the urge to give him a full bow of gratitude and instead bobbed her head awkwardly as she shot towards the fireplace, shouting out the instruction for the headmaster's office through which she could go back to Rome.

* * *

The sun hadn't yet finished setting, but Snape, now that he was finally alone, felt as if the girl had stayed in his rooms for a larger portion of an eternity. It has been a long time since he felt as weary as he felt now, and that was saying something, when one looked at the year he's had.

The moment she felt her master's wards shift and indicate that Hermione had left for professor Dumbledore's office, Libby apparated next to Snape's side. She looked at his tired eyes and didn't bother to comment on his state; she just snapped her fingers and made a flowing motion, making the tumbler on the counter refill itself with Firewhiskey and float in front of the broken-spirited man in front of her.

She picked up the tray of half-drunk tea and took it back to the kitchens after whispering a soft _goodnight_.

She knew better than to try to cheer him up. And she didn't concern herself with what the bad news he had received were. She would find out eventually, if not even tomorrow, and then they would soldier through it just like they soldiered on through all the rest of it.

After all, a request from a little girl couldn't possibly be _that_ bad. It couldn't be anything worse than what he had been requested to do from the Dark Lord.

It was the smallest comfort Libby could find, that surely, he'd made greater sacrifices.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. I don't know if it's like this for other writers, but I'm having a really hard time being objective about my work. The range of emotions I have about this story is nightmarishly broad; sometimes I love it, sometimes I feel like it's terrible and I don't know why I even bother writing it; the same goes for my writing. Now that the story finally reached the point where the reader can know what the story is going to be focusing on, please let me know what you think about it, even if you didn't like something about it (or even all of it). I'm open to criticism. Writing this chapter has been a long and tough journey and posting it really makes me nervous, so I would very much like to hear your opinions!


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Guest reviewers, thank you so much for your support! Also, I've opened a Pinterest board which contains a small compilation of pictures I've used as references for some of the things that have been described in the story. I know that links aren't allowed here so just add /darkbluechild/the-hearts-of-many to Pinterest's web address if you're interested in checking it out!

* * *

The hallway in the centre of Snape's quarters used to have five doors.

The functions of those doors were as follows: the first door lead to the spacious storage room connected to the Potions classroom that served as an entrance into Snape's quarters; the second lead to his private laboratory; the third lead to the conjoined living room and bedroom area; the fourth lead to the bathroom, and the fifth was one of Hogwarts' unmapped secrets and lead to the outside of the castle.

Libby had always had a flare for decor and Snape most often indulged her (as it was obvious from the state of his rooms), so she would often change the arrangement of the potted plants in the hallway; sometimes they would have a cluster of smaller ones, sometimes they would keep individual bigger ones in the corners. One eventful spring, though, when he was being punished for Merlin knows what transgression (probably forgetting to take off his shoes one too many times, or not putting the books back onto their respective shelves), Libby dragged in an overgrown agave tree with which he had to wrestle for the rest of the season - whenever he overindulged in Firewhiskey, he always had scratches on him arms to show for it.

Over the years she'd been doing the same with the pictures on the walls, with the carpets, lamps and other accessories, and the number of doors present was the only damned consistency that hallway had.

It was why Snape now stood in his hallway and glared at the new, sixth door.

Now, along with the ever present danger of stubbing his toe after Libby rearranged the plants (and he hadn't had enough time to get used to it), there would also be the danger of stumbling into a teenage girl's bedroom in the middle of the night, instead of the bathroom.

Snape observed the door carefully, as if he was critically looking at a painting. It was the same shape, colour (dark mahogany) and size as the rest of them, but he stared at it as if objected its very existence; which was rather silly, since he was the one that put it there just that morning.

He took hold of the brass hook and opened the door, entering the small room.

He had only been inside once to make sure he had adjusted the walls to the correct dimensions, leaving the rest of the work for the very excited Libby. She was left in charge of furnishing it and he had instructed her not to overdo it, but the sight in front of him made the little vein above his eyebrow twitch again. He said no red, and was obeyed, but he obviously forgot to mention the gold.

Hogwarts' storage areas contained enough spare furniture to equip a medium-sized hotel, but where the elf found _that_ canopy bed and the rest of it all, he hadn't the faintest idea. It was now too late to remember that, along with the generic furniture found in Hogwarts' dorm rooms, there was also leftover personal furniture from the retired professors. What Libby put into the room looked like a set from the 18th century, when overdoing it was still in fashion, and he cringed at the sight. The bed's vast drapes had gold-trimmed ruffles and the entire fabric was frilled, the sight nearly physically hurting his eyes. Between the desk, the chair, the dresser, mirror and wardrobe, there wasn't a straight edge in sight; everything was either curved or ended with a swirl. Beige and off-white dominated everything in sight, with gold covering all the smaller details.

The chandelier was very small, but still made of yellowed crystal, and the room even smelled like scented talcum powder ladies used on their faces in the old days.

If he was being punished again by having something like this in his quarters, he hadn't had a single clue as to what it was for.

He left the room and closed the door behind him, annoyed as hell.

One of the lovely features that Hogwarts castle had was that those who had the keys to its wards could rearrange the layout of certain areas however they saw fit. That did not mean that the space ran infinite, though, as Snape found out after he added to his quarters the room meant for Miss Granger. He wanted to add an extra bathroom as well, so as to avoid sharing his with her, but the problem he encountered was that there was not enough space left to expand. If he had unused space somewhere in the existing rooms, he could have taken it away to accommodate the bathroom, but unless he wanted to sleep on his couch or brew his potions with not enough elbow-room to keep the procedures safe, he had no choice but to share.

 _Which is a nightmare_ , he thought as he walked back to the couch and sunk himself into it. He unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt and put his slippered feet on the coffee-table, unabashed. He was a childless single man who hadn't shared his living space with anyone since he graduated from Hogwarts. After the one woman on Earth with whom he thought he could share his life with married another, then consequently died, he made peace with the fact that solitude was his fate and gradually got used to the peace and certain luxuries such a life brought on.

No sharing a bathroom, for one.

It wasn't that he questioned Miss Granger's hygiene (and even if he did, the bathroom was self cleaning and charmed not to allow odours to linger, compliments of Libby), it was just the principle of the thing. He liked his baths to last for over an hour, and now he'd have to wonder if a teenager was holding it in and jumping from one foot to the other while he swam with the figurative rubber-ducklings, which would take away from the relaxing effect.

And what if _he_ needed to go in and _she_ was having the lengthy bath?

The very thought made him groan.

After telling himself that he was probably over-thinking it (and not even indulging the thought that the shared bathroom would probably be the last on his list of worries), in an effort to save his nerves he decided not to stress himself out even more as he called for dinner. Once the meal arrived he ate it in silence and after allowing himself to rest with a book for a suitable period of time, he got up and headed for his laboratory to try his last personal attempt at brewing Dumbledore's potential cure.

It's not like he hadn't heard what she told him yesterday, but he'd be damned if he took her words lying down. What's another failed attempt anyway? Just a thirteenth imaginary scratch on the wall.

And then there was that small little hope in the back of his mind, that he just _might_ be right this time, and kill two birds with one stone.

Save Albus, and get her out of his life before she even properly entered it, her _and_ the inevitable female hygiene products in the cupboards of his bathroom.

The chances of success were once again minimal, and it was a dangerous potion to attempt to brew since it involved working with substances that he was still not sure would not react too violently with each other, but just like Miss Granger, he knew when something was worth the shot.

* * *

When Hermione arrived in professor Snape's quarters later that evening (eight sharp, punctual as ever), only Libby was there to greet her.

She felt very nervous about coming back to his home and seeing him again after he's had time to chew through the events of last night, afraid that he might have changed his mind or found some miraculous way to wiggle out the agreement. She still had a feeling that he went from repulsion to acceptance in a window of time far too short to seem plausible; her theory that the magic somehow nudged him was still only guesswork, and she had no tangible proof that she was actually correct in the assumption. She walked out of the fireplace cautiously and looked around the room after she greeted the elderly elf; the professor seemed nowhere in sight.

The room was pleasantly warm and the big window above the couch was wide open, letting in all sensations that the summer provided. A gentle breeze was both warming the room (for an old stone castle required heating even during the warmest of days) and letting in the smell of the magical roses that bloomed under the window. The birds sang melodiously, and the insects were doing their best to compete with them and spoil their pleasant effect; the cicadas screeched, the humming of far too many Flitterbys could be heard in the distance, and one particularly determined Blowfly was trying to figure out how to get into the room, its efforts futile since there was a protective shield put around the window to deter just such attempts.

Hermione's large (and over-packed) school trunk came out of the fireplace in tow with her. She made sure to be dressed casually, but respectfully, and was wearing some of her usual Hogwarts attire - jeans and a burgundy coloured sweater with white polka dots on it. What she really wanted to do was to play it completely safe and wear her school uniform; however, in the end she decided not to because she had an itching feeling she would be ridiculed for it, since there were no classes for her to attend, even though she was technically at school. Though, she still felt immensely more comfortable in the clothes and the sneakers she was wearing today than she did last night in her heels and the dress and all the rest of the stuff that made her feel like a fool in front of him.

She looked down at Libby to ask her where professor Snape was and when she would see him, but the elf could already tell from the girl's quizzical expression what was it that she wanted to know.

"Master is brewing a special potion and will not be able to greet you tonight, so I am to show you to your new room in his stead," Libby said, beaming, excited to show off the work her Master was so peevish about.

Hermione thanked the elf with a smile, only then remembering that she forgot to properly introduce herself. "I'm Hermione," she added as she crouched down to get to the elf's eye level. She extended a hand and Libby shook it happily, telling Hermione her name as a reply.

Hermione followed the jubilant elf to the hallway with many plants, and was told where each door in it lead to, after which Libby opened for her the door of the room from the dreams she never even knew she had. Suddenly she felt very guilty for imagining that the professor was going to make her sleep in a dusty and mouldy broom cupboard.

She gasped involuntarily when she saw the decor, and smiled a smile that matched Libby's own in delight when she saw that the view from her new window was the same breathtakingly beautiful one as the one from Snape's living room. True, it all looked like she entered an exhibit-room at a Muggle historic castle, but she was always very fond of such sights, and thus very happy that that was what her guestroom looked like. The effort that was clearly put into making it all look so beautiful comforted her; the fact that professor Snape went to such pains to make her feel welcome was very touching, especially since what she feared the most before arriving was that he was going to go for the exact opposite effect.

But surely, it wasn't Snape that did all this for her, she thought after pondering at it for a moment. He must have been the one to arrange it to be done, but wasn't the one responsible for the execution.

"Libby, did you do all this?" Hermione asked, gesticulating with a wave of her hand at the room in general.

"I did, Miss," Libby answered delightfully, proud to see that her skills were being appreciated, "I trust that the Miss likes what she sees?" she asked, going for some bonus praise, never being the humble one.

"Oh, it's wonderful, thank you so much," she answered, "also, please, call me Hermione," she added with a conspiratory grin, and it warmed the old elf's heart to see that her Master would play host to a creature so kind, joyful and full of life.

Libby was well aware that Hermione must have had questions other than just who designed the room, so she dived into explaining to her how things were.

"Master told me he won't be out of his laboratory until at least midnight," Libby said as she snapped her fingers. The motion made Hermione's trunk open itself, and another snap made the clothes and items fly in the directions of the furniture in which each piece was meant to be stored in; her pyjamas even flying to the bed and laying themselves out neatly at the foot of it. Much to Hermione's horror, the bags containing her bathroom necessities flew out of the room and presumably into the bathroom itself, and she paled white after imagining them smashing into professor Snape as they flew and spilled all their contents on the unsuspecting man.

Luckily for her, no infuriated grunt was heard from the hallway, since all of them were being made from behind the closed door of the private laboratory in which the Potions Master was going through hell itself as he was trying his hardest not to get his face molten off by the substance in his cauldron, that he would later be certain was the furthest thing away from being the cure for anything, but quite possibly a newly discovered high explosive liquid.

"If the Miss is hungry, she needs only say and Libby will bring her dinner," the elf said (it seemed that Hermione's request about being called by her name would go unheard) and surprised Hermione by taking her hand into her own small one, leading her out of the room and back into the living room. Hermione supposed that was alright, since she _was_ already unpacked, and they were still a couple of hours away from bedtime. She might as well spend the rest of the evening in an area meant for lounging, even if the sight of Snape's bed would be making her a tad bit uncomfortable to be around.

"I've had dinner before I've arrived, but thank you," she said in reply as she sat down in the armchair to which Libby led her to. She supposed that was her spot from now on, judging from the fact that, twice now, she'd been manoeuvred to it.

"Perhaps a book then, or does the Miss have something else she would like to do?" the elf asked gently.

"Well," Hermione started, thinking about it for a bit, "since it seems that I won't see professor Snape until tomorrow, I think I'd like to read my Arithmancy textbook," she said and, after she settled on the idea, was just about to get up again an go and get the book from one of the shelves in her bedroom on which she saw it fly and settle itself, but Libby beat her to it with another snap of the fingers and brought the book flying right on top of the coffee-table in front of them. Hermione was really impressed by how astonishingly well the elf controlled the magic and how precise she was in its execution (she was not even using a wand, for Merlin's sake!). If Ron or Neville _Accioed_ the book from that big a distance, the book would probably come flying straight at their faces. Even Hermione probably wouldn't have been able to settle it down so gracefully.

"If the Miss needs anything, she needs only to call Libby's name," Libby said as she smiled gently, and they said their goodbyes for the evening, the elf Apparating away.

Hermione's evening surprisingly ended up being nowhere near as uncomfortable as she imagined it would be. She felt very self-conscious, making herself at home in the home of the Potions Master, but if not for the nagging feeling of expectation that the man would barge into the room and startle the living life out of her, she would even have called the evening pleasant.

She was distracted by his books that surrounded her on their bookshelves for a lot of the time, being too afraid to grab one to read it despite _really_ wanting to, but she managed to lose herself in the Arithmancy textbook for long enough, until she noticed that it was ten o'clock already and that she should take her shower and go to bed.

As she entered the hallway once again and walked by the door of the laboratory, she stopped for a moment to look at it. He was in there, that much she knew, but what she really wished to know was what he was doing. She imagined that privacy spells were cast on the door from both sides, and that he had no way of knowing that she was right there in that moment, but it was still a very strange sensation, knowing that she was so close to him.

* * *

Snape left his laboratory just in time to hear the old grandfather-clock strike half past midnight.

The potion was yet another failure, though this time not because Albus tried it and it proved to be ineffective on the inhibited curse, but because he was unable to brew it. Or rather, the potion he created on paper was not even possible to brew. Two of the more important ingredients that went into it were too volatile, even on their own, and mixing them together ended up being a disaster. For the first time in many, many years, Snape had molten his own cauldron.

He cleaned up the laboratory with a Vanishing spell (because that's how bad the state of all the instruments used was) and walked over to his bed, dragging his heels, and started undressing. He piled all the clothes at his feet (they needed to go to the wash anyway, thought the shirt was probably unsalvageable) and climbed into the bed. Sleep started talking his consciousness away as soon as his head hit the pillow; he lacked the will to even get himself beneath the covers.

The knowledge that Miss Granger was in his quarters at that very moment was hidden in one of the furthest corners of his mind, and nothing but the faint scent of the jasmine oil that was in her shampoo that still lingered in the air was there to remind him of the fact.

By the time he caught it, he was already half asleep.

With an uncomfortable jolt of adrenaline that the memory that she was actually _here_ brought on, he became aware of his state and surroundings – in his birthday suit, with the door open wide.

Cursing the day he was born, Merlin, and even adding in some of the saints he remembered his father preaching about from his early childhood, he dragged his body to the edge of the bed. Wearily he reached down to the floor where his trousers lay and picked them up, pawing at them as he searched for his wand. As it turned out, it must have fallen out when he was taking them off and rolled under the bed a bit, and he picked it up off the floor with yet another muffled curse.

Once the wand was finally in his hand, he waved it half-heartedly. He made sure that the door closed itself soundlessly, after which he contemplated whether or not he should lock it as well, but after only a moment decided that he shouldn't bother himself with it, deciding that Miss Granger certainly wasn't the type that barged into somebody's rooms without knocking first and waiting for permission to enter.

With that done, he dragged himself back up the bed and buried his head in the pillow, asleep without another thought having the time to pass through his mind.

* * *

Hermione woke up to the sound of birds chirping in the distance, and to much cleaner air than she was used to in the Italian cities.

Last night she left the window open in order to allow the air to circulate, but she had forgotten to draw the curtains, so the sunlight that lit up her room finally arrived at her pillow and woke her up, rousing her consciousness and making it impossible for her to go back to sleep. The bed was the softest, fluffiest, nicest bed she had ever had the pleasure of sleeping in, and the room was a very lovely sight to wake up to, but she really wished there was a clock in it somewhere. It could have been seven or it could have been ten in the morning, she had no way of knowing without one.

She got out of the bed, stretching as she put her feet into slippers, and walked over to the wardrobe in search of something suitable to wear. She wasn't really sure how to dress, so she started an elimination process. Sweatpants, t-shirts or anything that was too comfortable was probably not a good idea for the very first morning of living with the Potions Master. She seriously doubted she would find him in his bathrobe, so she had to make sure she looked respectful as well. She pondered at the stacks of clothes (something she never usually did, never being one to put too much effort into her appearance, unless the occasion specifically demanded it) and in the end decided to choose the shirt that was part of the school uniform and a pair of plain black trousers. The choice satisfied her, even though it was slightly formal and more serious than what she had arrived in yesterday.

She put on the selected items, and once she made certain in the mirror that she looked passable, she left the comfort of her room. Once in the hallway, she realised that the door that lead to the living area (and his bed) was closed, and she guessed correctly that he had not left it open yet so that she could access the bathroom and do her morning routine before bumping into him first. It was considerate of him, but also as much for his own benefit as it was for hers; he had no wish to speak to someone who hadn't yet had the chance to brush their teeth.

Once finished and freshened for the day, Hermione knocked on the professor's door hesitantly (afraid of the slight possibility that the man might actually still be asleep), but she heard his voice in reply immediately telling her to come in, and she sighed in relief. She opened the door and entered the room very timidly, feeling more like a trespasser than as a guest. She found professor Snape sitting in the same spot she had left him two days ago, sipping on a cup of tea and with The Daily Prophet opened across his lap. On the coffee-table in front of him was a tray containing empty plates, indicating that he had already finished his breakfast, though it must not have been long ago, or else it would have been taken away already.

So she hadn't overslept then, she thought, relieved.

A day just as beautiful as yesterday shone outside, and the window behind the professor's back was wide open again. The sky had another storm scheduled for the late afternoon, but right now Hermione deemed it as a most perfect day for a walk, and she found herself wishing that Ron and Harry were there with her so that she could spend the day lounging with them by the lake, her with a book in her lap and them playing Wizard's Chess by her side. _Does professor Snape ever go for walks by the bank?_ she found herself wondering, but somehow couldn't imagine him doing that; he was more of a type one would imagine to be found brooding on steep cliffs above angry seas, instead of enjoying a peaceful lake.

"Good morning," she said in greeting as she slowly walked into to the room and toward the armchair on which she sat, or to put it more precisely, in which she sunk in. She snuck a peak at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room and saw that it was almost half-past eight. That wasn't so bad, she thought, all things considered. She was not one of the sloppier teenagers that didn't get out of bed until before the clocks struck noon during the holidays (like a certain Weasley she knew), and she had actually overslept, at least according to her own standards. She was usually up and running by seven o'clock, so she'd really need to conjure an alarm clock from somewhere.

"Good morning," he replied in return, but didn't even bother with lifting his gaze off the papers. _Rude_ , she thought as she watched him turn the pages, completely ignoring her. He was dressed the same as he was the day before yesterday when she'd last seen him, and she imagined that he was probably the type of man that had large numbers of the same clothing items and rarely ever changed his look. Still, it was strange to see him without that menacing cloak of his, and looking at least _semi_ -normal.

"Libby," he called, surprisingly softly, and the elf popped up by the armchair to Hermione's right. "I believe that Miss Granger is in need of breakfast," he said languidly, but smirked as the elf Apparated away before Hermione got to put a word in about what it was that she actually wanted to eat or drink, leaving her gaping open-mouthed like a fish. He was entertained by the sight, having finally looked up, now that he got to see it happening to someone other than him. This morning he'd been given oatmeal for breakfast that he didn't know he actually wanted, and he suspected that Miss Granger would be stuck with the same.

 _Does she do that to him as well?_ Hermione wondered, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the answer to that question was a very shocking _yes_. The girl finding out about just how much he was micromanaged by that elf was near the very top of the list of the things he dreaded would happen during her stay. As he expected, Libby turned up with chocolate oatmeal with banana slices on top, but a glass of orange juice was alongside it instead of the tea that he got. He put effort into not frowning at the sight, because upon seeing it, he suddenly found himself craving for the orange nectar, all the while wondering why he didn't receive it as well.

If Libby was going to play favourites, _he_ was supposed to be the favourite one, not _the girl_ , for Merlin's sake!

Hermione was pleasantly surprised by the meal she received and ate it in a relatively comfortable silence as the professor continued reading his newspaper without looking up at her anymore. The only thing that was bothering her was that she felt very self-conscious about the sound of her own chewing in the silence of the room that was only interrupted by the occasional turn of a page, and was glad to be finished with the meal, despite it being very tasty, and put the bowl back down on the tray.

"Now," Snape started, folding the newspaper and tossing it to the side as soon as Hermione drew herself back up, "regarding the McGreen merging," he said. His legs were crossed at the knees and he was leaning into the couch while holding one arm outstretched across the top of the backrest and the other bent at the elbow, supporting his head. Though it was not so much noticeable from his body language as it was from his burning gaze, he was radiating impatience and keenness, but not for the acquisition of knowledge and information – instead, only for the wish that they get the damnable business over with as soon as it was possible.

She always knew there was no mincing words with the man sitting across from her, and that he liked getting straight to the point, but she really wished he wasn't so unpleasantly obvious in his behaviour – not giving it even seconds after she had finished her breakfast and going straight to the main task at hand. _Some_ pleasantries _were_ in order; he could have at least asked her if she'd slept well, or apologised for not coming out to greet her last night. After all, with him not showing up at all, there was no need for her to come yesterday instead of today, unless he thought she needed time to acclimatise herself to her new surroundings. It's not like she particularly minded; she _knew_ what he was like, but putting in effort from the start would help _both_ of them. She knew she wasn't there because they actually wanted to be in each other's company; she knew there was a purpose to this and that the whole ordeal was her idea in the first place, but that said purpose required them to feel comfortable in each other's company, and him being pushy in order to get it all over with quickly was not going to help. In fact, if that was going to be his attitude, the whole thing might last even longer than it should.

"Since the last successful merging was recorded over eighty years ago," he started in the same lecturing voice he usually uses in his classroom, "and all of the details on the execution of the technique were banned from the public after it had become an illegal medical practice, _but_ , with you being the one to have actually successfully experienced it..." he said, pausing a bit as he leaned his elbow down onto the armrest, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, "why don't you tell me how we are supposed to do this."

She could tell that it did not come easy for him, asking her for instruction. Despite being one of the best Legilimenses out there, he was walking in the dark whereas this mental technique was concerned, and she knew that he would have to completely rely on her guidance. He was a proud man, a very knowledged one, and she did not find it strange that a situation such as this irked him. It was not often that Severus Snape found the tables turned on him. She knew that she was still on slippery ground and had to tread carefully; just because he was cornered by the magic and had no choice but to do as he is asked didn't mean that he wouldn't put up a fight as they went into further details about what the endeavour was going to entail.

"Well," she started, braving confidence, glad to finally present to him the findings she thought she would have been able to lay out on the table two days ago, "what Harry and I were doing is best described as simplifying Legilimency."

Snape raised his eyebrow at that statement in response. Hermione understood what his mockingly quizzical facial expression meant, because she had already learned from painful experience that there _was_ _no_ simplifying Legilimency.

What actually happened was that there were two teenagers _playing_ at doing just that, but all the while doing something else entirely, and figuring that bit out when it was already too late to go back, as a result destroying the foundation of their own friendship by seeing the depths of each other that they never would have seen in normal circumstances, and then having to start building all over again, while all the while presenting a lie to the world that nothing had ever changed.

But she'd be thrice-damned if she'd put it like _that._

"At least, we _thought_ that that is what we were doing," she corrected herself, drawing up courage from that hidden emergency well inside of her, "but I can tell from the look you are giving me right now that you already know that there is no such thing," she said rather pointedly (angry that he was practically making faces at her) and received a smirk as the only reply. She knew that she had to show her teeth to him from the start; she felt that if she did otherwise and cowered, she would find herself manoeuvred into territories _he_ found comfortable, and that probably mean them telling each other their goodbyes for good.

 _Brave, snarky little Gryffindor,_ he thought, not appreciating the cheek, but still biting down his need to answer her and rub her own stupidity into her face. He knew full well that with such behaviour he would only derail her from her tracks and make her obvious discomfort increase tenfold, which would only end in prolonging this dreadful process.

"We decided that instead of _attacking_ each other's minds, as we knew was the usual practice, we would gently _invite_ each other in. We thought that would be the exact same thing, just a less invasive version. Easier. We were quite astonished when we found that it actually worked. We really thought we were doing it. Legilimency, that is," she said, lowering her eyes as she said it, and he was glad to see that she at least had the common decency to blush after making such a statement.

 _Inviting each other in... The idiocy of it,_ he thought. There was no such thing out there as non-invasive Legilimency. The mind of the reader must be like a sharp knife, piercing the protective layers of the mind it invades, moving quickly and with determination, so as not to get stuck or lost in the mind he was reading. What the children have been doing with their mellow approach was dragging their own minds into the mind of the other, leaving their own residual waste of memories as they subconsciously cherry-picked which memories to take away with them. It was a miracle that they got themselves out of that mess without the need for outside assistance.

For that is what the McGreen merging was, he thought with frustration. A gradual loss of self to another, if not done in a controlled environment. And even then it fails with most people. It was a very bitter pill for him to swallow, the fact that he was going to have to embark on an endeavour like that with a girl whom he didn't trust to be able to keep up with his own mind, while all the while having to rely only on her questionable guidance.

"And how long exactly did it take for you to realise that you were scrambling each other's minds by choosing such a method?" he asked, barely managing to keep his tongue in check. He wanted to growl and roar the way he usually does; he wanted her to know just how _stupid_ he thought her to be for doing with Potter what she's done, and he was barely containing himself not to. He had asked her a similar question about the duration of the experience the day before yesterday, but only found out that it was for a short while; now it was time for the details.

"Only a couple of sessions to realise that something was...odd," she said, taking her lip between her teeth, "but we still continued for over a full month before we started taking memories away from each other and decided that it was time to stop," she added, quietly and hesitantly.

"A month," he stated, as if to taste the word on his tongue, and found himself floored by it. If it took her and Potter that long (who were a match made in heaven for the merging), Merlin only knows how long it will take them, he though with despair. He leaned his body forward and put his face into his hands, supporting his elbows on his knees. _Why did I even ask?_ he wondered, and decided that it was because he was actually as dunderheaded as he found her to be. Reason itself should have told him that the answer _couldn't_ have been 'six days in total', but he was only human, and thus prone to hoping to hear good news when in reality, only bad ones should even be expected.

"But I really don't think-" she tried to speak, but he cut her off.

"Oh, don't you?" he asked her, sarcasm dripping from his voice, even though it was only two words that he'd said. If she was going to say that she didn't think it would take them as long as it took her and Potter - well, it would, he thought, and possibly even longer. For all they knew Albus could be dead and buried by the time their minds finally got in sync. Even if a compatibility issue doesn't occur, their minds were as foreign to each other as Muggle and Wizarding Britain. There were three more weeks until the school year begins, and unless a miracle happens, they would be well into the first term by the time they succeeded with the transfer of those crucial memories of hers.

"Just tell me the details of the process," he commanded with frustration in a muffled voice as he spoke through his hands, as she mussed how to respond to his previous snarky comment. She was glad to be released from that reply with his instruction (because she really didn't know how to respond without making herself equally as rude as he was being) and instead enabled to delve into the technicalities.

She started again, drawing in a big breath.

"When you practice Legilimency, you are always in search for something in another's mind, right?" she asked, and he only nodded in reply reluctantly (proud of himself for being able to reign in the need for pointing out that she was asking questions with obvious answers again), finally leaning back into the backrest and establishing eye-contact once again.

"When Legilimency is practiced, there is a specific purpose for it; for instance, when a Legilimens wants proof that someone is lying, and is in search for the accompanying truth," she said.

Still being obvious, he thought, growing even more frustrated.

"Well, what Harry and I did..." she said, pausing, searching for the right words as she pulled a strand of hair behind her ear, "there was no actual purpose for it, other than just to learn how to do it."

Ah.

So that is where she was going with it, he thought.

It did make sense, and now that she had stated it like that, he found himself wondering how it was that more people didn't stray down that path when trying to learn Legilimency and Occlumency. Though he himself was taught by Dumbledore in the same way he had tried to teach Potter last year, by way of attack and defence, it never actually occurred to him that there might be possible different approaches to the practice. He knew that even Bella was hacking away at Draco's mind when she was giving him Occlumency lessons, and she _loves_ the boy (though in her twisted way), and would never hurt him otherwise.

"We _did_ try to focus our minds on uneventful memories, just to keep our thoughts in one place instead of wondering all over, but still, all we really did was gently hung out in each other's minds, so to speak. After a while we started being more specific about the memories..." she said, stopping at that point in order to search for the right words again as she furrowed her brow. She didn't think it would be hard for her to put into words how the McGreen merging worked, but it was. It was a shadowy procedure, as much based on chance as on exact planning, and therefore very hard to explain in precise detail.

"What happened from then on was some form of nonverbal communication. We started selecting memories to show to each other, and with constant repetition of that process, it is how we communicated in the last days of the experiment. Only one day, Harry delved into my mind a bit too deep and had actually _taken_ a memory for the first time. That is when we realised that something was seriously wrong. That day we asked the Room of Requirement to provide us with copies of book for the library that describe mental magic, and we've found out about the McGreen merging and all its consequences. Over the next few days we returned to each other what was taken – the one complete memory Harry had taken from me and all of the residual impressions that came from experiencing the rest of them. And that was it, basically," she finished with a sheepish expression on her face, prepared for the tormenting comments that were sure to come.

It didn't _sound_ all that complicated, but he could only imagine (until he soon experienced it) how taxing a process it must be for two people to share that which nature never intended to be shared in the way she had just described.

"So, what you are telling me," he started in a condescending drawl, "is to enter your mind while all my Occlumency shields are dropped, and simultaneously accept you into my _own_ mind as I hover inside of yours, while all the while we pretend like there are no places where we don't want each other to stray into?"

The slow, placid way in which he said it, along with the venom that dripped from his rich, deep voice, frightened her a bit.

"It – it does require a certain amount of trust-" she said, stammering, and was cut off again.

"It requires an _absolute_ level of trust, Miss Granger," he said, now seething. How in Merlin's name did the girl think something like this was even worth the shot for the two of them? he found himself wondering for the umpteenth time, "and trust in each other is not something we have in abundance in the first place. It _won't_ work, and we will only hurt one another in the process of confirming that. You should think this through one more time, for both our sakes," he said angrily, hoping against hope that his words didn't fall on deaf ears.

She took another deep breath, fighting for calm and courage against his stubbornness. She was one nasty comment away from telling him he was being uncharacteristically stubborn like a Gryffindor.

"I think it's erroneous to come to such a conclusion without even trying it _once_ with our minds focusedon something we don't mind each other to see," she said, her pride now hurting a little by all the doubts he had in her, and by the statement that there was no (or at least, not much) trust between them. Her trust in him wasn't only abundant – it was absolute. And one would think that she would have earned his over the years.

Well, apparently his words _did_ fall on deaf ears.

 _Gryffindors_ , he fumed silently, unaware that she thought him equally as stubborn in that moment.

Even that _one_ attempt could prove to be their ticket for the Janus Thickey ward, he thought. Just _how_ and _why_ didn't the girl seem to mind that? Though saving Albus' life was a possible end result (as well as a highly unlikely one), them putting their own minds in the line will most likely end up doing more harm than good.

"And if such an attempt proves successful," she continued stubbornly, "after a couple of tries we will prove to each other that there will be no unwanted snooping. And then the required trust that you mentioned will be established," she said pointedly, as if she was addressing Ron when he was being particularly difficult with something.

The look she was giving him right now was bordering a glare. She was determined, and would keep on being persistent, he knew, but there were still a few things he could try before he finally started waving the white flag.

It was time to steer the conversation his way.

"Are you comfortable right now, Miss Granger? Is your mind at ease?" he asked her, fixing a forced smirk on his face as he saw the confusion and panic caused by his words gradually starting to rise within her, "because it doesn't take Legilimency for me to know the answers to those two questions. Become aware of your own body for me for a moment," he said languidly, gesticulating with his hand from her feet to her head, while simultaneously starting to move as if he was going to stand up, but only repositioned himself on the couch; his movements adding to her fright.

She found herself scandalised by his words for a moment. There wasn't anything actually inappropriate within them, but she was very self-conscious and unused to speech that could contain potentially sensual double-meaning from a professor. _What on earth did he mean?_ She was no fool not to know that whatever he was doing now was a ploy to make her change her mind, and she knew she had to stand her ground no matter what, even as another blush started setting on her cheeks.

"Become aware of the way you are sitting, Miss Granger," he instructed, knowing full well that her mind had taken a momentary detour into the gutter, but also a little disappointed that it only took so much to ruffle her feathers.

 _Oh, that_ , she thought.

She realised what the point was without having to think about it - she was sitting on the edge of the seat from the beginning of the conversation, back straight, knees tightly together, arms in front and hands on knees. It was certainly not the body language of a person that was comfortable around their companion. It was the body language of someone whose nerves were on edge. Lead by that train of thought, she also became aware once again of the clothes she was wearing. She cursed inwardly, now realising that the message she was sending with them wasn't just that she was being respectful by wearing them – it was that she mentally still saw herself only as a student, despite this special situation that she had put them in. When she had come out of her room that morning, by her own doing she had let him know that she didn't consider herself as his equal. No wonder he was still so sure that he had the upper hand.

He could see the cogs turning behind her brown, doe eyes, and he continued, certain that he was on the right track.

"Do you honestly think that you could ever be relaxed enough in my presence in order for us to do what you are suggesting?" he asked, sounding sceptical and unconvinced.

He had her there, she agreed. When she was doing it with Harry, they were most often lying about on a floor of giant pillows, and once even in a giant fort made out of fluffy blankets. Up until things took a wrong turn and they realised they were in too deep, they were always relaxed and happy to be spending their time together studying 'Occlumency'. If something bad had happened during a particular day, they simply wouldn't go into the Room; instead they waited for a better time, not wanting to share and amplify the bad experiences, only the good.

He really did have a good point, she realised, and was suddenly glad that he had pointed out her state of mind. It really would be no good if she was all nervous and scatterbrained from stress when they started their first session.

 _All right, then_ , she decided. Since he was still being stubborn about it, she would be stubborn as well. Since there would be no backing down from her side, and now that it finally came into her head that she was still being afraid of offending him for _no good reason_ (no possible detention, no loss of house points, no need to care what she looked like in his eyes since he was clearly not putting in any effort not to be a git in _hers_ ), she decided to put an end to her fear and got up from the armchair, storming out of the room without a word and going into her own.

 _That was_ too _easy,_ he thought, frowning, not yet allowing himself to be relieved by her walk-out. Her eyes were burning with determination before she got up, so whatever she went out to do there couldn't have possibly been to pack her trunk, though he sincerely hoped that it was just that. She came back out of her room not two minutes later, mustering all her courage as she made a beeline toward the couch and sat herself right next to him, picking up her feet on the seat so that they were almost touched his legs, angling her entire body to face him.

 _There_ , she thought.

 _Relaxed._

The truth was, it was more that she was now even more maddeningly determined than relaxed, but it amounted to the same thing; though she could only hope that with this dispay of bullheadedness she hadn't put _him_ too much on edge now.

As a reaction to her reappearance and violation of personal space, his elbow was back in the armrest and his fingers were pinching the bridge of his nose again, eyes closed as well.

Clearly, his skills of crushing the confidence of young girls and making them cry have rusted quite a bit. Instead of discouraging her, he seemed to have somehow riled up her competitive spirit.

He saw when she was entering the room again that she now wore an oversized blue sweater (which he was certain she had nicked from another member of the Golden Trio) and grey pants that looked like they might be pyjama bottoms, but it had been a long time since he was acquainted with Muggle clothing; for all he knew they could have been proper street-ware. It seemed that the conclusion she had reached while he was trying to dishearten her was deciding to cross the bridge of no longer coming to him in the function of a student but in that of an adult Order member. That was within her rights (though highly inconvenient for him), but he still thought that it shouldn't have given her enough gall to suddenly turn up in front of him dressed like a street hooligan.

Or at least, what he imagined street hooligans looked like nowadays.

He was seriously fighting the need to growl. If he had an Animagus form, it would have certainly been that of a bear.

"Please, professor," she asked, almost in a whisper, "let us give it a try," she added, and the inner left corner of her bottom lip was back between her teeth as soon as she finished the plea.

He was staring straight ahead of himself from the moment she sat by his side; he hadn't turned to look at her once. So many questions were rushing through his head as fury and resentment rushed through his veins. Where was that weakling of a girl that always buckled under the weight of his glare and mockery in the Potions classroom? Where was that foolish girl that he made cry at least once during class for every school-year she had attended at Hogwarts? And just who was this virago which didn't seem to know when to withdraw and was getting more and more annoying by the minute?

 _Fine,_ he finally decided (though, if he could admit it to himself, there was nothing to decide, since he really didn't have a choice), forcing his rage from a boiling point into a simmer.

Since she was begging for it, so be it.

And whatever happened to them, however twisted and mangled they become, it was on her.

He slowly turned to face her, coal-black eyes meeting her innocent, trusting ones.

And suddenly he was there with her – inside of her, being as big of a brute as she had feared he would be.

* * *

Thank you for reading, please review!


	9. Chapter 9

I'm sorry about this chapter being on the short side! I've been working on chapter 10 parallel with this one and it really slowed down my progress, but at least I expect the next update to come much sooner.

Also, a bit of a warning so that you don't get confused mid-chapter with the canon divergence – I'm adding my own flare to how Legilimency works.

* * *

Severus Snape was rarely ever wrong, and he had found himself in situations where he would have to apologise for something he'd said or done only a handful of times in his entire life.

The last time he'd found himself to be mistaken was three years ago, when he insisted to Pomona that the especially rare root usually grown by the handful of the remaining Welsh druids had to be planted during the night-hours. The Herbology professor, on the other hand, insisted that it had to be done at dawn if one wished for it to be an ingredient of acceptable quality. Not heeding her advice (because how could someone possibly know better than him?), he planted the silvery seeds (acquired on the black-market for a small fortune) in a clay pot on his windowsill - at midnight. The plant grew out successfully, all right, making him feel very smug, and he lorded his success over Pomona for weeks on end. Though still offended, the plump professor took the celebration of his victory gracefully, almost without comment, which should have clued him on that something might still be amiss. There was nothing graceful about Pomona, ever; she was the kind of woman that never goes down without fuming and arguing, and he should have known that with her silence and humility she was just her pretending to have accepted defeat.

He became aware of his mistake three months after the planting. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, and after six hours of brewing, the cauldron in which he added the chopped root exploded, much to the Potions Master's horror and disbelief. He found himself, as well as his laboratory, covered in green goo, and it was Pomona's turn to be smug.

The Potions Master's last apology was tied in with his last error – it had to be given to Libby, who was the only person in the entire castle skilled, capable, and willing enough to clean up the mess he had made without having to throw out half the lab equipment.

The lesson was only partially learned, though, as he had acquired _some_ humility after it (but nowhere near enough), and now his three-year-old record was finally broken, with Miss Granger being the one to blame.

"You were bloody right," Snape ground out after he pulled out his consciousness from her mind, his hand flying to his forehead in an effort to ease the headache with which he emerged, his tone of voice indicating that he was having a hard time believing his own words.

He shot a quick glance at the clock to see how much time had passed since he immersed himself in Miss Granger's mind. He frowned deeply when he realised that they were at it for a little less than ten minutes, which was about five times more that he would have guessed. Where in Merlin's name did all that time go?

 _Well…_

 _Certainly_ nothing _like Legilimency._

Before the two of them started their connection, the sun was well hidden behind a cloud that seemed to make its life's goal to charge towards it; having reached it, the sounds of the critters outside the window came to a nigh hush due to the change, and when Snape was entering Hermione's mind, the room was almost completely silent. Now that they've resurfaced from the quicksand that their first mental connection was, and since some considerable time had passed, the warm sun shone upon the castle once again, setting the communal buzz of the critters back into action and making the room bright and annoyingly loud again.

Snape watched Hermione on the couch next to him intently, but his close attention was not awakening discomfort within her, since she was not in the state to notice it, feeling as weary as she was. Her breathing was more rapid than it should have been and her pupils were strangely diluted. She was also visibly much paler than she was before they've started the mental connection. She looked up at him after a while, meeting the ill-concealed concern in his gaze. She tried to brave a smile at him, but couldn't manage even that, let alone a reply, before she felt that she was going to be sick. She abruptly sprung up to her feet, running out of the room and towards the bathroom.

Snape cursed loudly.

He was well aware of what was happening to her, having seen it plenty of times (and having been the direct cause in most of them), so he got up to his feet and was right at her heels as he hurried to follow her.

It wasn't uncommon to be sick after having one's mind violated, but with how many times she'd emphasized that the approach with the merging (as opposed to regular Legilimency) was supposed to be _gentle_ , he really should have listened. His own distrust in the success of the experiment led him to approach her mind in the usual harsh fashion of reading another's mind with Legilimency, and she would not have been ill if he hadn't done so. In fact, the only reason she was going to be sick was because he decided to be a prick about it, and with what was happening now, that mistake stung. Hard.

Experience should have taught him to know better, but apparently, it didn't.

Hermione, as she ran, could hear the sound of Snape's heavy footsteps following her, and she wished for the floor to open up under her and swallow her whole from mortification. Just _why_ was her body betraying her this way? Already her mind was flooding with fear that he was going to say that this reaction was proof of an incompatibility issue. It _couldn't_ have been, she was sure, though what the real reason for it was, she did not know. Once she reached the bathroom, she fell down to her knees in front of the toilet bowl and was hovering above it while trying her best to gather all of her hair with both hands until the first wave of sickness hit. It was proving to be a difficult feat, having there been so much of it. As soon as Snape arrived at her side, he reached to grab the remaining loose strands that were putting up a fight, but was met with her embarrassed resistance.

"Damn you, girl," he growled at her as he fought her flapping elbows, trying his best to gather the rest of the chestnut-coloured locks that were going to get into the toilet bowl unless he did something about it.

Soon after she had no choice but to allow him to help her, as she started retching and heaving, and continued to do so until the acid started burning her throat and tears of both physical pain and humiliation coated her pale cheeks. She was a mess, but he was right there by her side all the while through it, fussing over her uncharacteristically, wiping her chin with a tissue and handing her a glass of cold water after the convulsions stopped, which she had accepted with a muffled 'thank you'.

He crouched by her side after she had finished drinking her water and reached absentmindedly to start gathering all of her hair with his hands again and twisting in order to keep it in one place, just in case she'd misjudged that her stomach had finally settled down. In normal circumstances, she would have instinctively jerked away from the touch again, but by then she felt so weak that she barely registered that his hands were back at her head, and so he was allowed to do it.

He knew that she was purposely keeping her head turned away from him. He knew she was a young girl, and though he'd usually find such behaviour to be silly, in this moment he was too humbled by the sight of the distress that he had unnecessarily brought on to be judging her for anything, let alone her embarrassment.

The most he could see of her profile were the long, thick, tear-coated lashes over half-shut eyes and her slightly glistening cheekbone. Her back and shoulders were slumped; her hands lay limp in her lap. He guessed that if he moved to look into her face he'd find her with a gaze that blankly stared into the distance. Now, after it had been confirmed that she was right all along, and if only for a moment, he wished that he wasn't always such a bastard. He knew that his pride was one day going to be the death of him, but he would really have to find a way to put a leash on it, unless he wished for it to be the death of someone else too.

"Are you finished?" he asked softly, letting go of her hair and allowing it to rest on her back.

Though he'd never let her know it, her humiliation paled in comparison to what _he_ was feeling as he watched her body painfully contracting as her stomach emptied itself. His main argument against attempting the McGreen merging was that they were most likely going to end up hurt in some way, but even after their first attempt (even though he was too rough in his approach of her unsuspecting mind), he could already tell that their minds were in tune more than enough to be able to go through with it without any foreseeable complications. And yet, in spite of that, only due to his colossal pride, he still managed to hurt her.

"I am," she said, taking deep breaths and keeping her head hung low as an extra effort to calm her body down, more or less certain she was not going to start retching again.

He got back up to his feet and stood himself behind her, reaching for her forearms in order to help her get up to, but the hand flapping started again as she nervously refused the help.

"Miss Granger," he growled in a low voice, less than satisfied by her insistence to keep sitting on the cold tiles of his bathroom.

"I'm all right!" she exclaimed, lying more to herself than to him.

Along with feeling completely worn-out, she was also burning with shame that she had just made a display of such weakness (retching as professor Snape held her hair, for Merlin's sake!), and she didn't want to add to it by looking up at him and showing him her tear-stained face.

"Are you, now?" he asked, arching up a cynical eyebrow. He was not going to judge her for her embarrassment, but he was also had no intention of humouring it. "Stand up then," he ordered pointedly, crossing his hands on his chest as if to form a physical shield against her unreasonable stubbornness, knowing there was more to her unfortunate state than she was aware of right now.

Hermione didn't respond to the command, but remained sitting on the floor, not even attempting to get up, knowing instinctively that she would faint if she did so - though for the life of her, she could not understand why it was so. She could feel that her blood pressure was probably at the lowest it had ever been; her head felt as light as a feather. _What is going on?_ she wondered, growing more and more worried that it actually _might_ be an incompatibility issue, having no way to know better.

Snape, refusing to budge from her side, sighed deeply, shortly pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. He was understandably frustrated. He knew that she wished for privacy, and even more, that she was in need of answers to questions yet unasked, but first there was some healing to do before those needs were satisfied.

Having reached a decision on the course of his actions, he leaned down, and with a sweeping motion of his arms, picked Hermione up bridal-style. Surprised and panicked protests could be heard from the armful, but they were ignored as he carried her back into the living room. For a man as big and strong as he was, her lithe body fit into his arms, and she wasn't too much of a weight for him at all. The walk was not long enough (thankfully) for her to decide where exactly her hands were supposed to go, so they remained rigidly pressed against her chest while she kept her gaze fixed over his shoulder. Due to such physical proximity she could smell the clean scent of his aftershave, and she could only imagine how _she_ now smelled to him, sweaty and filthy as her spell of nausea had made her, the thought of which set her cheeks blazing red.

Upon arrival to their destination, Hermione found herself unceremoniously dumped back onto the couch she sprung up from mere minutes ago like she was a sack of potatoes, after which professor Snape (without delaying to actually say anything to her) walked out of the room and left her alone to wonder at what the hell had just happened.

Snape walked over to his private laboratory in a couple of quick, determined strides. He knew that the girl was in need of two potions: one that would settle down her stomach for good (along with fixing the damage her previous spell of nausea brought on), and another one that would restore her magical reserves (which he had depleted with his brutish attack on her mind). Though she couldn't be aware of the nature of the state her magical circuits were currently in without attempting to cast a spell, if she'd tried to even lift up something magically at that moment, she'd find that the object wouldn't even budge.

One wall of the Potions Master's private laboratory was entirely covered with shelves and cabinets that contained finished potions. From common burn-healing slaves, Swelling Solutions and a vast number of Pepper-Up vials (more than even the Hospital Wing contained in that moment), to antidotes to some of the rarest poisons known to man; that was the range of the potions stored on those shelves.

Snape reached for the two required potions from two separate cabinets. One potion was in a round glass vial that contained a liquid with an orange hue that could've been mistaken for caramel, while the other was in a small, square, dark one; its semi-hidden content looked like muck. Though, as it usually goes with potions, it was the pretty, inviting one that would make Miss Granger wish that she was drinking the Drought of Living Death instead, if not even something worse.

Having acquired the vials, he walked back to Hermione. Without offering an explanation, he handed her the vial that looked like it had a miniature swamp contained inside of it. Hermione, still feeling a bit queasy, reluctantly accepted it. She drank its contents without bothering to ask what it was that she was given, since she recognised that it was the Bitterroot Potion; the cure for nausea. She had read about it in the fourth-year Potions textbook and memorised its description; brewing it had been skipped since it was an uncomplicated one to brew for a fourth-year (according to Professor Snape, at least), and Hermione remembered wondering about why it was even in the textbook if that was the case. Upon drinking the foul-looking liquid, she found herself surprised that it tasted nowhere near as bad as it looked; a bit earthy, and surprisingly salty, but not too much. It even left a minty aftertaste.

While she drank and pondered at the potion, professor Snape stood above her; he was unspeaking, like an ominous statue, as they awkwardly waited for half a minute to pass from Hermione drinking the potion (for it to reach its full effect) until it was good for her to drink the other one. As he handed her the pretty-looking vial, she was tempted to ask what it was (having not recognised this one), but refrained from doing so and tilted the vial in order to drink again. As soon as the liquid touched her tongue she made a grimace of disgust, but continued drinking until the vial was empty, surprising Snape with her resolve, since he knew it to be one of the most foul-tasting potions in existence.

Hermione, having decided that she had been unprotesting enough, deemed it a good time to finally ask professor Snape some questions. He obviously seemed to know why she was still so weak, hence the second potion he had given her. She guessed correctly that it was meant to repair the rest of the damage, but what she really wanted to know was what the hell the said damage actually _was_. Nothing like this had occurred when she was practising the merging with Harry, and the irregularity took her by surprise, actually frightening her quite a bit.

But, as it turned out, all questions would have to be saved for later.

Before Hermione could become aware of what was happening to her, without there even being enough time to turn her head towards the professor and shoot him an accusing glare, the effects of the potion had kicked in. Her consciousness shut down in the blink of an eye and she was knocked out cold, her body slumping lifelessly onto the couch with a dampened thud. The bottle and cork fell out of her hand and onto the couch as well, from there rolling off and falling onto the carpet, the glass too thick to fear breaking.

Snape, still standing over her, smirked, pleased that the potion was working as it should.

Now there was nothing left for him to do but wait for it to do the rest of its magic, and for Miss Granger to wake up from her induced slumber.

He walked over to the floral armchair and sat himself down, sighing deeply as he did so, crossing his legs as he leaned his head back into the headrest. He waved his wand to close the window soundlessly; the buzz of insects outside was becoming overbearingly loud and annoying. With another wave of the wand he drew the curtains a bit, dimming the light in the room. He closed his eyes and brought his fingers to his temples, trying to knead away the headache that was still hanging on.

But most importantly - he needed to think, and he was in luck, because an opportune window of time had presented itself for him to mull over what had happened ten minutes ago.

* * *

Miss Granger's mind was a mess when he'd entered it.

There was nothing unusual there; the mind of a Legilimens' victim is always frantic when the reader starts hacking away at it, but with the initial panic all similarity to any of his previous experiences ended.

After his forceful entry, which was executed quickly and with deliberate force - instead of allowing her mind to howl in pain and continue to put up a fight as any other normal person would, Miss Granger, after only a few moments of fright and disorientation, forced her mind into a calm.

Though she must have felt ravaged by him in that moment, she was no longer offering him any resistance. Snape remembered himself losing his sharp edge right then and there, along with becoming temporarily at a loss as to how to actually navigate. Her mind suddenly felt like no mind he had ever encountered before. Most invaded minds have tracks of thought that could usually be followed, but Miss Granger's all disappeared; instead, he found himself standing in a seemingly endless field. He could feel her rooting him in, and it was a strange sensation, since no one had ever made an effort to make his or her mind accommodating for him; no one ever tried to make it _cosy_.

He'd never been given the permission to go anywhere he wished and to look at anything he chose to. Naturally, he didn't give into the temptation to do those things. That wasn't the point of the exercise, after all; the point was doing the exact opposite. Still, the power she'd given him in that moment felt intoxicating, but she left him with no time to bask in the feeling.

Before he knew it, she managed to focus her mind on only one thought, and his own mind was brought along for the ride with it. She chose the experience that was the most fresh, and so he found himself reliving her previous evening - sitting in his own living room, in his own armchair, ogling his own bookshelf, practically salivating with the desire to get up and reach for one of his own books. He was studying Arithmancy, but _Merlin,_ how badly he wanted to grab that Damocles!

Having read over a hundred minds in his lifetime, Snape found himself astounded by the level of self-control the girl possessed in order to be able to immerse him so accurately, as well as by the trust in him that she had displayed. Even a person who had neverhad any Occlumency training protects _some_ thoughts from the reader without even being conscious of doing so, but she managed to forfeit it all in a matter of seconds.

She allowed herself to be completely at his mercy; she became a willing victim.

But even with all that, his Occlumency shields remained up. They were not supposed to, since it was an exchange that they were going for. He had to remind himself that this wasn't regular Legilimency, that it was a two-way process. He wasn't reading her mind, he was _pulled into it,_ and he wouldn't remember anything he experienced unless he opened up his shields and let her through. He was hardened by the war, the interrogations he'd conducted, the Dark Lord's countless strolls through his mind, and it was impossible for him to do the exact same that she had done, to allow himself to unravel completely. The most he could do, at least for today, was to will his mental barrier to crack just a bit, and allow himself to experience just a glimpse of what it was to share his mind with that of another.

* * *

Hermione woke up fifteen minutes after she had fallen unconscious, but it took over a minute for her to fully come to her senses.

Since her consciousness was tiptoeing very slowly as it was getting back to her, she woke up believing that she was still it a hotel in Venice, and tried to remember groggily whether she'd had wine the previous night. Her parents had taken her along for a wine tasting in the beginning of their Italian tour, and the experience made her vow never to touch the ruby liquid again. So why would she have drank it again last night if she knew how badly she reacted to it? She wasn't feeling well, and she could tell that she was severely dehydrated. With the desire to get up and chase that feeling away, she made an effort to make her eyelashes flutter softly in order to allow a bit of light through, but her eyes felt too sensitive. With a deep groan, she began to turn her head away from the source of light.

She didn't succeed in getting much movement out of her body, but it was enough to realise that the pillow beneath her head was all wrong; it was very thick and hard, as if designed to invoke a neck ache. Why in Merlin's name would any reputable hotel choose to put it in their bed, and why had she chosen to sleep on it? When she thought about it, the bed she was laying on wasn't the most comfortable one either. It was too short, for one. There was not enough room for her to stretch out her legs. It actually felt more like she was sleeping on a couch that on a bed.

 _A couch,_ the thought started echoing suspiciously throughout her brain.

 _Am I on a couch?_ she started wondering, and was beginning to get very confused.

 _Wait a minute…_

Hermione started forcing her eyes to open, ignoring the sensitivity issue. They took a lot more persuading than she was used to, and she was beginning to suspect that something was terribly wrong with her. Though her body seemed to be completely out of her control, Hermione's mind was quickly rebooting itself. Alarm bells started blasting off in her ears after she was met with the realisation that her movements were so limited that she was practically paralysed. Her suspicion about there being something seriously wrong was proven true when her eyes finally agreed to open and instantly locked with professor Snape's keen, obsidian coloured ones. The facts that she was not in a hotel-room and that she couldn't move her body paled in comparison with the realisation that the Potions Master was sitting in his floral armchair opposite her, watching her as she slept.

"What..?" she asked in a slur.

She planned to add a lot more words to the question, but speech failed her after the first one. She was also supposed to sound panicked, but the most emotion she managed to put into that single word in her weakened state made her sound only mildly interested.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, sounding mockingly sweet. He chose the worst time to pretend he'd developed good manners.

Snape had been in need of the potion he had given Hermione more than once in his lifetime, so he knew from experience that the girl was waking up with something resembling the worst hangover anyone had ever had. It's why couldn't help but find the situation entertaining, and he was doing his best to fight down a smirk so as not to let her know it.

Hermione, not feeling able to grace him with a reply, shot him a dirty look in order to let him know exactly how she felt about his question. He was not used to her pretty face pulling such ugly grimaces, and it drew a chuckle from his throat. He could tell that she was both disgusted and furious at him, but he couldn't help but agree that he deserved it. After all, who gives a girl a potion that practically drugs her into a stupor and then proceeds to tease her about it?

"Do you know of the White Oriole Potion, Miss Granger?" he asked, genuinely curious as to what the girl's answer will be. It was a potion very rarely called for in today's world (after Veritaserum had replaced Legilimency as an interrogation method), and so he wondered whether there was a limit as to how big of a know-it-all she could be.

It took another twenty seconds for Hermione to pull herself together enough to be able to form a reply.

"Natural magic replenisher?" she ground out with a furrowed brow, making Snape fight the juvenile instinct to roll his eyes, because, o _f course_ she knew of it.

"If I had the ability to do so at the moment, I would have to give you points for knowing of it," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to rub his newfound frustration away. "At least twenty of them. It's a rare one, not mentioned once in Hogwarts' study program. I expect you've had dig pretty deep in the library to have read about it. Once you get better, you'll have to tell me what you were looking for in order to have stumbled across it."

 _How does she know the answer to_ every _single question I ever ask her?_ Snape found himself wondering for the umpteenth time, and couldn't believe that he was still fuming about it after six years of being her professor.

Not that she would have, but Hermione wished she had the ability to throw something at him. She didn't have the energy to grace him with the full 'professor, would you please tell me what is going on' reply; instead, she had to settle on continuing to stare intently at him with a facial expression that bordered on a glare, awaiting the explanation he owed her.

The hard part had arrived for Snape - having to admit that he made a mistake to someone, especially since that someone was the golden know-it-all of Gryffindor over whom he'd lorded over his infallible superiority for years on end. Infallible until now, that is.

 _Well, all things must come to an end someday, I suppose,_ he thought, comforting himself. His ability to remain without blemish in her eyes had come far, but it shall go no further.

"I've fried your magical circuits completely by entering your mind as violently as I did," he said grimly; his tone of voice finally serious; his shoulders starting to hunch as if he was feeling physical discomfort from just saying the words he spoke.

As a reaction, yet another rush of panic started flooding Hermione's 's read so much on Legilimency that she could have been considered an expert by some; she knew full well that it could be very strenuous on the body, but had never read even a mention on the depletion of a person's magical stores by the practice.

"You see," he started, placing his elbow on the armrest of the chair and leaning his forehead into his hand for support while rubbing at it with his fingers. It had been a long time since the Potions Master had put himself in a situation that made him fidget and noticeably struggle to find words, but he continued. "After over two decades of only using an aggressive approach to another's mind, I've…failed to restrain myself," he said with a weary sigh.

Even through half-shut eyes and while laying on her side on his couch, Hermione could see the anger and disappointment with himself on his face, as well as his regret that he'd done as he' just explained.

Feeling like it probably wasn't going to be enough of an explanation for the girl, he continued, though he still sounded very reserved, as if it pained him to volunteer so many words to her. "When I had been assigned to teach Mister Potter his Occlumency lessons," he said, saying Harry's name as if something bitter had touched his tongue, "it took weeks of preparation for me to…smooth my edge, or so to speak. I felt convinced that I still knew how to use such an approach before I'd entered your mind, but, as it is obvious from your current state, I've failed us both miserably."

There.

He'd said it.

And just how hard it was for him to say it.

 _Well, that makes sense,_ Hermione thought as she used the little energy she had acquired by her rest to turn her head away from him so that she could stare at the ceiling instead of at him.

She wasn't mad at the professor anymore, or disappointed in him, or anything, really. She accepted his explanation since it now all made perfect sense to her; both her sickness, weariness and the need for the White Oriole. She couldn't understand, though, why _he_ was so obviously beating himself over it. If it couldn't have been helped, then it couldn't have been helped. The only thing that mattered was that it was a mistake that could be learned from, so if there was to be a next time, he would know how to do better.

 _If_ there was to be a next time, but from how it all went down, she wasn't so sure about it. He said that she was right after they had finished, but she couldn't understand what he meat by that. She could always feel Harry inside her mind after a while when they'd break their connection; she couldn't feel professor Snape at all. Though her mind was still in a bit of a haze when it came to details, she realized that her memory of last night, the one she was certain she had showed him, was seemingly still intact.

 _Have we done_ anything _with this first session?_ she wondered nervously, taking her lip between her teeth.

"You didn't take my memory away," she said quietly, and sounded bitter about it.

Ever since the idea of merging her mind with professor Snape came into her head, Hermione began hoping that in some miraculous way, due to her vast previous experience with Harry, their success would be instantaneous – memories would be able to be given and taken as easily as it was to breathe. It was a dream (and was now a broken one), but she was not to be blamed for hoping for so much. She made the simple mistake of believing that professor Snape being a skilled Legilimens would be a benefit, and she couldn't have known that it would actually prove to be a drawback.

"No," Snape answered her with a frown, and in a tone of voice that implied that he didn't even understand why he was being asked such a question. "I did not take the memory away from you."

It was now his turn to glare at her, but that was the natural reaction of a pessimist when life presented him with an optimist.

"However," he grit through his teeth, "I did emerge from our connection with the need to desperately read again a book that I've read half a dozen times before and that I already know by heart."

Not only did he put himself in a situation where he would have to admit that he made a mistake today, at the same time he had to admit to the girl that she had been right all along. As frustrating as it all was for him, he was well aware that he put her through quite a hell before she'd gotten to this point, so he found that he couldn't begrudge the little warrior the happiness that was beginning to flood her mind as she processed what he'd just said to her.

She was still unable to speak properly and the most she could do to acknowledge his words was to fix her eyes on him with a delighted but questioning look. In order to provide her with proof to his statement, he nudged his head in the direction of the coffee table.

A shabby-looking book lay there. With a faded purple cover with black trimming and a handwritten name on its spine, it was a perfect copy of Professor Damocles' notebook on the creation of his Wolfsbane potion.

It was the same book Hermione had been ogling the entire previous evening.

The look of childish delight on Hermione's face succeeded in breaking a small crack through Snape's foul mood, and shadow of a smile managed to creep into the corner of his mouth when he saw how elated seeing the book had made her.

Though it was certainly a lot less that she had hoped for, it was still success.

"It worked," she said with a deep sigh of relief, closing her tired eyes before they started filling themselves with tears again.

"So it did," he answered her quietly, and watched her consciousness leave her again, this time as she fell into a natural, deep and absolutely necessary slumber.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading! I need some help again – now that we've had a decent amount of our two protagonists interacting with each other, could you please tell me if it all _feels right_? This story is an attempt at an in-character romance (though I'm well aware of the fact that romance between these two is the furthest thing away from being 'in-character'), and my biggest fear at the moment is that I'm writing Snape as too agreeable. I'm not going for a version of Snape that torments Hermione all the time and makes her miserable, but should he be a bit more snarky? Please let me know what you think!


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